Why Legal Writing Needs Editing and Proofreading

Legal documents call for a series of revisiting and revising to make them above reproach in every aspect. Find out more about why legal writing cannot afford any kind of misstep and the consequences thereof.

Legal writing is focused on a thorough research and processing of the legal concepts. Then it moves to organizing all the content before culminating in the writing of the legal prose. But what about checking and correcting the text?

Indeed, spelling and grammar mistakes are not only embarrassing, but can have far-reaching consequences when it comes to legal documents. Let us take a look at the difference that legal editing services can make.

• Legal documents are, by nature, loaded with legalese which makes them very complex and confusing. Lack of clarity in the writing can mess up the comprehension and make things more baffling.
• There is no scope for inaccuracies in legal writing. Each and every date, figure and statistic has to be accurate. An overlooked discrepancy or inadvertent slip-up can prove to be very costly.
• The same goes for minute errors in the wording as this can, at times, alter the entire meaning and purpose of a document.
• Nobody can realize the value of a comma or full stop better than a person who is writing legal documents. A couple of years back, a Portland-based dairy company had to shell out a whopping $5 million in damages as the judge upheld that a single missing comma in the contract worked in favour of the truck drivers who were appealing for four years of unpaid overtime wages! Get the picture?
• Similarly, lawyers cannot afford to go wrong with numbering sections and sub-sections or ordering headings and sub-headings. Such mistakes will not only create confusion but can also come back to haunt the parties later.
• Accuracy in the citations, referencing and other elements is equally crucial.
• Neither can a legal document afford to be too messy or lengthy.

Therefore, legal editing and proofreading involve a range of edits to flag up a variety of potential inaccuracies in text before it is submitted or utilized. However, this cannot be left to any layperson. The lawyer/writer may not have the time or ability to do a good job. This task calls for a professional who is not only well-versed in the language but is also detail-oriented and knowledgeable enough to verify the facts and other minutiae.

A skilled legal editor will check the structure, facts and flow of concepts for logic, lucidity and precision. There will be a focus on sentence construction and usage of words so as to make them clear, concise and comprehensible. He/she will go over the document with a fine-toothed comb to weed out misspellings, typos, punctuation errors and the like. The formatting including the page numbering, headers, footers, fonts and other details will receive equal attention.

The right professional service will ensure that legal writing meets the highest standards without any room for even the minutest of errors!