The Importance of Proofreading in the Legal Profession
For those in the legal profession, words and numbers are the currency of their trade. The pleadings, contracts, and correspondence they prepare and read need to be accurate, clear and precise. Merely inserting a word or phrase incorrectly alters the intended message. When lawyers make mistakes, slipups create hazards for their clients and themselves.
Consider the following examples that illustrate why proofreading is of top importance. In the first example, in 2014, Shelby County taxpayers in Tennessee received tax notices that were based on incorrect property values provided by the Shelby County tax assessor’s office. The county lost revenue because of errors in the tax notices, and Shelby County’s assessors office and its technology vendor settled in a $1.2 million federal lawsuit over the matter.
Here’s an even costlier example. In 2010, Bank of America agreed to pay $108 million to settle a class action lawsuit over errors that appeared in its mortgage documents.
But it’s not just legal writing that must be error-free in the legal profession. Numbers must be handled with equal attention to detail. Take appellate briefs , for example. A record appendix is created when a case is appealed. The appendix contains the lower court’s entire file. Including the lower court judge’s mistakes in the appendix are devastating and can lead to a loss on appeal.
Lawyers routinely write compilations of past cases that support their cases. The citations for these cases must be correct and accurate. One small digit in a case number can be the difference between winning and losing.
Professional proofreaders are experts in these areas of the law and have the training and experience to assist lawyers in virtually any area of law. This includes federal, state, appellate, and local courts.
Every letter, brief, contract, email, mediation paperwork, complaint, summons, and legal notice needs to be reviewed and proofed for accuracy before it’s presented. Expert law proofreaders know that there’s no substitute for good proofreading. Your law proofreader has the education and experience to catch typographical errors and other mistakes that could cost you your case.
Common Mistakes Noticed by Legal Proofreaders
Lawyers are taught to keep things simple. But the fact is, we deal with more information than just about anybody. And when it comes to proofreading, simplicity rules. But after you have gone through your substantive editing process, it’s time to check for certain errors that always seem to pop up. Here are a few of the common errors:
Typographical and Formatting Errors
A typographical error is a mistake made in the typing process, such as typing an extra space or using the wrong word, like "you’re" when you mean "your," or "its" when you mean "it’s." Formatting errors occur when you use the wrong font for paragraph headings, or spell out the word "Exhibit" and use an Arabic numeral for the number (Exhibit 1 vs. Exhibit 1). They also occur when you mistake "double space" for "1.5 space," or when you put in three spaces instead of one.
These types of errors make your document hard to read and glossing over them can cloud the interpretation. They should be addressed during the re-reading of the document, described in the next section.
Errors in Citation and Footnotes/Endnotes
There is no perfect citation system and each jurisdiction has its own way to do it. When you are using a specific citation style, make sure to be consistent and double-check to see if it matches the pattern you chose.
If you have hyperlinks, make sure they all work, so you don’t send people into an endless loop to nowhere. Also make sure, that if you are referring to a specific section of the document, you show people where you are going with links to sections in the document. If you omit this, the reader may be very frustrated.
If you work with endnotes, make sure the links to them are working, and that there are no gaps in the numbering.
Missing Information
Sometimes you may reference a diagram, but it does not appear in the document. Or you may be missing a footnote. Or some information on formatting or images is missing.
Errors in Titles or Sequence of Pages
When numbered pages are misplaced (for example, you have four pages with caption "Exhibit 1" but with page numbers 4, 5, 3, 2, rather than 1, 2, 3, 4), the document is not usable. Time-consuming finds and replaces that swap in new page numbers may be necessary. Instead, straight observable errors can be fixed at once with a table of contents. Then check for discrepancies after fixing them.
Once these common errors are found, correct them in your final document. Alternately, compare the original to the final version to see if any slips occurred during the editing process.
Best Practices for Proofreading Legal Documents
While reading your document aloud may feel strange to the uninitiated, it is one of the most powerful proofreading tools available. It works on two levels — first, it forces you to look at each word separately and can pick up errors that the autocorrect feature didn’t catch. Second, it helps you to hear how the text flows; many lawyers have been caught out by the use of "its" instead of "it’s" or "affect" instead of "effect." The mind’s eye can easily skip over text when reading silently, but you will be forced to stop and reread a poorly constructed clause if you are saying it aloud.
Of course, you should also take advantage of the consistency checking features in your word processor. No matter what your preferences are for punctuation or capitalization, all of your documents should conform to the same standards; having consistent language throughout all of your documents will increase their perceived usefulness and professionalism. For example, if you use "for you and your beneficiaries’ benefit" in some documents and "for you and the benefit of your beneficiaries" in others, you could be confusing your reader and opening yourself up to liability in the process.
Understand the Terminology Used in the Document. Given the challenges experienced in proofreading legal documents, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the majority of legal terms and phrases. If it is difficult to determine the grammatical role a word or phrase plays in a sentence or paragraph, you may have to turn to the Internet for help or consult with an associate who can help you interpret the text. Familiarize yourself with the dictionary and thesaurus features in your word processor, as they can expedite the proofreading process.
Read All Documents Multiple Times. First, read the document to get an overview and determine if you understand the author’s intent. Then, begin again, reading through the text slowly and carefully, ensuring that you understand each phrase and that proper punctuation is used. Finally, conduct a final read-through to check for errors that you may not have noticed the first time around.
Resources for Law Proofreading
On top of your regular proofreading strategy, there are several tools and resources that can be incredibly beneficial when finalizing legal documents. From advanced software to traditional style guides, having the right support can bolster your confidence when finalizing important documents. Take a look at some of the most common tools and resources for proofreading legal documents.
Microsoft Word is a powerful tool when it comes to proofreading—and one that the vast majority of legal professionals use on a daily basis. Its built-in spell check and other comprehensive features can save you a headache and extra time by identifying errors before your document even goes out the door. That said, have your document proofed for errors Microsoft could have missed.
Professional proofreading services offer a valuable service in the world of legal services. Technical writers and editors are trained to identify and correct minor typographical and grammatical errors in large volumes of text. If you’re juggling various projects and need some additional support, professional proofreading services can be a great investment.
Some legal professionals prefer the hard copy when it comes to proofreading; they’ll request, print out and read a hard copy of their document, carefully following their proofreading strategy . A hard copy often makes it much easier to focus and catch mistakes.
It may seem silly, but putting your document through dictation software can reveal errors in grammar and even typos in your documents. Dictate each sentence out loud to hear the differences in phrasing, or to pick up on those tricky words that sound the same but aren’t.
Technical writing and grammar guides are invaluable when proofreading any document. The Purdue Online Writing Lab is an excellent free resource that offers a comprehensive guide to writing and researching a variety of documents. It’s a go-to for many legal professionals and is adaptable to a variety of writing styles.
Reading out loud, a stalwart proofreading tool, has many uses. It can help you catch errors you might not otherwise catch, as well as help you catch awkward phrasing, identify excessive verbiage and even reveal redundancies.
When proofreading legal documents, be sure to put these style guides to good use. Common legal style guides include:
Struggling with proofreading legal documents? Use these 6 simple, yet effective, proofreading tips to help steer you clear of common pitfalls and help you catch errors for each project.
The Function of a Legal Proofreader
A legal proofreader has a reputation to maintain. A legal proofreader must fully engage with the material before her, be it a contract, a new statute, or even a presentation for clients. She is on alert for misspellings, missing punctuation, typos, and the like but she is also looking to identify any areas that need clarity or improvement. The legal proofreader sees the big picture but shouldn’t be burdened with editing the content as this is outside the scope of her work. Unlike a copyeditor, she doesn’t rewrite or add content, even though she might notice where additional information needs to be added.
Litigation proofreading is a very specialized field. A lawyer’s mark-up on a document is an art form unto itself, and must be used in three different documents (the Plaintiff’s Rule 11, Defendant’s Rule 11, and the Joint Discovery Plan) in a way that no other law firm has ever done before. It is more than probable that you will not have a software application to help you translate the mark-up into your system. You will be scanning the mark-up and entering it by hand into the document that you are preparing. Because of this, a litigation proofreader cannot edit as they go, or they risk a complete rewrite of the document, or worse, transposing the mark-up into the wrong place. The art form becomes a science. Your mark-up must be consistent throughout three different documents while remaining clear and error-free. The only way you can manage your rule 11 is by creating a guide to your firm’s specific document quality standards so that it will be carried through all documents to create a consistent pattern of practice. And that is where I come in – to manage that quality standard for you, not to edit or make judgment calls about your rules, just to ensure that every document, regardless of the type of document, follows your established standard.
The work of the legal proofreader is vital to the overall function of law firms and in-house counsel. They are often unsung heroes who toil behind the scenes, following presiding judges’ instructions, creating better practices for the law firm overall, and leveling out a Walker Stalker Party sit down with clients and opposing counsel so you don’t lose your case in the room.
Improving Your Proofreading Skills Through Training
Many professional proofreading and editing organizations sponsor training workshops that provide a basic overview of issues in proofreading, standards and processes, as well as techniques for developing a critical eye. A session conducted by The Publishing Training Centre, an independent professional training organization based in the UK, and offered through the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, covered subjects such as proofreading marks and symbols, common errors, and the difference between proofreading and editing, and provided extensive practice exercises to master the skill. The National Association of State Secretaries of State (NASS) offers "The Proofreading Readiness Training Manual and Video," which emphasizes proofreading in a public finance context and covers the analysis and treatment of technical language. One group also offers an online video training course to increase the proofreading skills and confidence of law school graduates.
The value of frequent practice is highlighted across a variety of instructional materials, and training programs . A 26-minute Canadian government-produced video guides the viewer through editing and proofreading exercises and continues with a series of 12 short practice exercises, where the viewer can practice a skill for a few minutes and then select the correct answers to see how they did.
Multiple professional editing organizations offer various levels of certification that require both practical exercises and the completion of supervised projects. These groups also provide presentations by seasoned professionals.
A number of books are available to help build practical competence. A variety of longer and shorter practice exercises can be found on sites dedicated to the art and science of proofreading. A panel of experts in proofreading and editing at Cornell. University Law School Library has compiled a higher education collection of their reviews that refer to proofreading, editing and grammar.
The leading industry guild for editors, the Editorial Freelancers Association, has several proofreading and copyediting resources available to members.