Almost a century and half later, Abraham Lincoln’s written work still stands up. I just finished (and enjoyed) a Lincoln biography and was struck how Lincoln relied on his ear to help edit his work. (A. Lincoln by Ron White.) In Lincoln’s words, “I can always tell more about a thing after I’ve heard it read aloud, and know how it sounds.” (Page 584)
Professional writers understand this and recommend reading prose aloud. I find that if I’m struggling with a sentence or paragraph, reading it aloud will help me focus on what’s wrong with it.
My rule of thumb is that if it sounds good it probably is good; and conversely, if it sounds bad it probably is bad.
Try it the next time you can’t seem to fix a chunk of text. Or better yet, ask yourself, is that text necessary at all?
Practice News
-
November 3, 2009 |
Practice News
-
November 3, 2009 |
Practice News
In the on again, off again world of the "Red Flags" rule, we're off again. The FTC has delayed enforcement of the anti-identify-theft provision until June 1. That should be welcome news to your business clients, though some may wish the agency would just end the suspense and pull the trigger on enforcement. Meanwhile, a federal court held recently that the rule does not apply to lawyers.
-
November 3, 2009 |
Practice News
Did you know that you can use Fastcase Authority Check to help you find the most authoritative cases on your research topic? In fact, if you are not taking advantage of Authority Check's second-level of citation analysis - citations within your search results - you may be missing out on valuable information. Follow these quick and easy steps to get the most out of Authority Check and find authoritative cases quickly. 1. Perform a search using the Advanced Case Law Search. Make sure that the box next to "Show Number of Citations in Search Results" is checked at the bottom of the page. 2. When you get to the Results screen, you will see a column labeled "Authority Check" on the far right of the screen. Under that heading, there will be a blue hyperlink that reads "These Results." Click on the link. 3. After you click on the link, your search results will be sorted by the number of times they have been cited by other cases within your search results. In other words, the most authoritative cases - those relied on most heavily by other cases within your search results - will be at the top of the list. Call Fastcase at 1-866-773-2782 (7AM-7PM Central Mon-Fri) or e-mail support@fastcase.com with any questions.
-
November 2, 2009 |
Practice News
Is a credit card company's agreement with a cardholder a written or an oral contract? That's an important question in collection cases, because the period available for suing on the debt is 10 years for written contracts but only five for oral agreements. "[O]ne might well think that a credit card agreement would qualify as a written contract because credit cards are generally issued pursuant to a written card member agreement," write Judge Daniel T. Gillespie and Kathilynne Grotelueschen in the latest Trial Briefs, newsletter of the ISBA Civil Practice Section. "In fact," they continue "for years the collective wisdom was that there was a 10-year statute of limitations on credit card debt...." But then along came the first district's ruling in Portfolio Acquisitions, LLC v. Feltman, where the court found otherwise. The Feltman majority ruled "that the monthly statements are not complete agreements and therefore do not qualify as written evidence of indebtedness under the statute," Gillespie and Grotelueschen write. Thus, no written contract and no 10 year statute of limitations. Interesting and important case, interesting and noteworthy article.
-
November 2, 2009 |
Practice News
One of the many blessings of the Internet is the proliferation of legal-writing blogs. To quote Bryan Garner, the law is a literary profession, and I believe that writing is something I have to work on every day. Think about it; we churn out more copy than most journalists do. I’ll note a couple of blogs that I like. Ray Ward. Ward, an appellate lawyer in New Orleans, gives thoughtful, practical advice culled from actual cases and publications. Wayne Schiess. Schiess teaches legal writing at the University of Texas Law School of Law and has also written several books on this subject. I read his Writing for the Legal Audience this summer and thought it was excellent. Bryan A. Garner has become the gold standard for legal writing, and his site offers readers a free “Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day” by email. Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl produces short and enjoyable podcasts on specific issues such as the difference between “which” and “that.” If I am eating at my desk, I tune her in.
-
November 2, 2009 |
Practice News
The American Law Institute recently voted to withdraw its model death penalty law, stating that the system is unfixable. The ALI study concluded: The foregoing review of the unsuccessful efforts to constitutionally regulate the death penalty, the difficulties that continue to undermine its administration, and the structural and institutional obstacles to curing those ills forms the basis of our recommendation to the Institute. The longstanding recognition of these underlying defects in the capital justice process, the inability of extensive constitutional regulation to redress those defects, and the immense structural barriers to meaningful improvement all counsel strongly against the Institute’s undertaking a law reform project on capital punishment, either in the form of a new draft of § 210.6 or a more extensive set of proposals. Rather, these conditions strongly suggest that the Institute recognize that the preconditions for an adequately administered regime of capital punishment do not currently exist and cannot reasonably be expected to be achieved. Click here to read the full story.
-
October 30, 2009 |
Practice News
As most of you know, Illinois' estate tax now kicks in at $2 million, while the first $3.5 million of an estate are exempt from federal tax. That obviously poses a challenge for estate planners. Fortunately, though, in September the governor signed Illinois' QTIP election into law. So what does that mean? I'll let Jason S. Ornduff take it from here (he wrote about the new QTIP law in the latest ISBA Trusts and Estates newsletter): "Before the state QTIP election, estate planning attorneys and their married clients faced a quandary; either fund a credit shelter trust up to the maximum federal exemption and pay Illinois estate tax at the first death, or fund the credit shelter trust with the lesser of the two exemptions, avoiding the Illinois estate tax at the first death, but potentially wasting up to $1.5 million of the federal exemption which could cause federal estate tax to be due at the second death. "After legislation authorizing state QTIP election was enacted, a properly drafted estate plan permits a married couple to leverage at both the federal level and the state level – that is, for federal estate tax purposes, the entire federal exemption is used by (1) a $2 million federal and state credit shelter trust and (2) a $1.5 million federal credit shelter trust that is, for Illinois estate tax purposes only, a QTIP marital trust that qualifies for the marital estate tax deduction." Read the rest of his article, and watch for one by Robert Kolasa on the new QTIP law in the December Illinois Bar Journal.
-
October 30, 2009 |
Practice News
In keeping with the Illinois Supreme Court's desire to bring greater public access and understanding to the courts, audio recordings of all oral arguments in the Illinois Appellate Court will soon be available on the court's website. The new access will be available beginning Monday, Nov. 2 at www.state.il.us/court. The appellate courtrooms in all five Judicial Districts have been equipped with digital audio recording systems that will preserve audio quality long term for archival purposes. The systems also are compatible with standard computer software readily available on most person computer systems, and will allow the legal community and the general public to listen to and download audio recordings of all appellate arguments and workers' compensation hearings.
-
October 29, 2009 |
Practice News
Referrals -- and the fee sharing that often goes with them -- are a common and perfectly legitimate part of p.i. practice. But when it comes to fee sharing, you have to get it right. Make a mistake and you can quickly find yourself in trouble with the ARDC. That's why you'd be wise to take a look at Albert E. Durkin's concise summary of fee-sharing basics in the latest Tort Trends, newsletter of the ISBA Tort Law Section. The biggest source of trouble, Albert says: "Receiving a case from another attorney can become problematic when [he or she]...cannot be a 'referring attorney' as defined under the provisions of IRPC 1.5, and, therefore, cannot be disclosed as sharing in the fees or sharing in the financial responsibility of a case to the client. Examples...are when the referring attorney either has a conflict of interest or works for a firm or agency that prohibits maintaining a financial interest in cases outside of their employment."
-
October 29, 2009 |
Practice News
This spring's budget bill, Public Act 96-45, changed tax policy effective for tax years ending Dec. 31, 2009 by limiting partnerships’ deduction to “guaranteed payments” instead of “reasonable compensation” for the Personal Property Replacement Tax. That change generally limits the deduction to income partners because equity partners’ income is based on their share of the distributable income of the partnership. House Bill 2239 (Currie, D-Chicago; Harmon, D-Oak Park) restores this deduction. It has passed both chambers today and will be sent to the Governor within 30 days for his signature, amendatory veto, or veto.