Give a lawyer a red pen, and they'll find a hundred reasons to use it.

People sometimes ask whether there’s a danger in Sideline making it too easy for supervisors to mark up draft emails.

The concern is that supervisors should only be correcting things that are actually wrong. They shouldn’t be nit-picking on minor stylistic points. Or to put it another way, it’s not a bad thing to have some friction in the review process, because it makes supervisors think twice about whether a change is truly needed.

I don’t doubt there are many occasions where supervisors overreach in terms of their edits.

But I also know that edits which juniors lawyers may consider to be personal stylistic preferences are often made for very important reasons not immediately apparent to juniors, due to either a lack of experience or a lack of context.

Style can matter, a lot

I like to tell the following story as a lesson in adapting your style to your target audience.

A junior associate I was working with had noticed a problem with some rather complicated ‘change in control’ wording that would have negative implications for our client.

‘Good work on spotting that,’ I said. ‘How about you explain it to the client and get their instructions to raise it with the other side.’

We called the client.

The junior began: ‘So imagine you’re the Company, and I’m a potential Investor. If I do X, then that triggers Y, and then I would be deemed to have control of the Company given how the clause is worded, so there would be a change in control.’

‘That’s not how I read it,’ replied the client.

The junior tried again. Same result.

I needed to step in: ‘So imagine I’m the Company, and you’re a potential Investor. If you do X, then that triggers Y, and then you would be deemed to have control of the Company given how the clause is worded, so there would be a change in control.’

‘Oh yeah, I see it. That definitely needs to be addressed,’ agreed the client.

We ended the call. The junior turned to me: ‘What on earth just happened ? I said exactly the same thing as you. All you did was switch around who was the Company and who was the Investor.’

‘Yep, I’ve known this client for a while,’ I explained. ‘I figured it might be easier for them to imagine a scenario where they are the one dominating others, rather than the other way round.’

Style is everywhere

Legal writing always has a purpose. It’s trying to achieve something for a particular audience. It could be to persuade, it could be to inform, it could be to comfort. Whatever the purpose, style is critical. It’s not enough that the raw content is technically correct. How you say it is just as important.

For example:

• structuring contracts so they are easy to follow and digest for those who will need to implement the contract;
• using clear and simple words when communicating with foreign language speakers; or
• being succinct and commercial when writing to business clients.

I don’t need to educate experienced practitioners about this. They know their area and their clients the best. But those practitioners do need to educate their juniors about it. I’m constantly hearing juniors say that their supervisors make stylistic changes that don’t make any difference, when I’m fairly certain that a lot of those changes do matter. They just haven’t been told why they matter.

But restraint is also important

One of the biggest challenges of coaching is to guide the pupil in the right direction while still allowing their personal qualities to shine through. The task is not to make them into a mini version of yourself, but to help them find their own path. Just because you would do or express something in a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s the only way.

I’m comfortable Sideline helps people achieve this balance. Yes, it makes editing somebody else’s draft email 10x easier, but it also makes it 10x easier to see and evaluate how much of that draft you’ve changed before sending it back. Ultimately, the supervisor needs to make a call on how much redline is appropriate. There’s no one-size-fits-all. It depends on far too many intangible, contextual factors.

What’s certain though is that the need for in depth, word-by-word feedback on legal work product is not going away. Nor is detailed feedback something to shy away from. None of us enjoys receiving work back covered in changes, and we might not agree with all of it, but the process is essential for growth and development.