Читать книгу The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well - Tom Goldstein - Страница 14

6 LESSONS FROM A WRITING AUDIT

In 1988 we conducted an experiment at a fast-growing, medium-sized corporate litigation firm on the West Coast. One of the senior partners invited us to audit the firm's writing process, to interview a cross-section of the work force (partners, associates, paralegals, secretaries, and support staff) and assess how well the firm was meeting its goal of producing high-quality documents in an efficient manner. In the course of updating this chapter, we visited another office of the same firm in 2000. The office had newer equipment, but little else had changed. We believe that our original analysis and proposals were sound—though we obviously underestimated the degree of institutional resolve that would be needed to implement our recommendations.

Field Notes

The firm annually hires a large number of associates who understand that they will be spending long hours in the office, often under intense pressure, churning out documents. Senior members of the firm say that good writing is appreciated and rewarded. Because the firm is growing so rapidly, they worry about the quality of briefs, memoranda, and other documents drafted by new associates. But the partners are too busy practicing law to devote much time to training their younger lawyers. They are too busy even to review writing samples when recruiting new lawyers. (In this, the firm resembles many other growing firms with active business practices.)

The firm falls short of its professed goals (high quality, high efficiency). It tends to have higher-priced people doing lower-priced work. For example, several associates acknowledge that they overwrite documents, expecting partners to edit and revise. Much of that editing and revising should be completed early on, by the associates themselves. A second example: one associate said he proofreads his drafts and documents because it takes too long to walk the papers to the central proofreading desk. He, and perhaps others, should be told something about the nature and value of proofreading.