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Lawyerisms abound. One of the worst is the parenthetical numerical. We clutter our documents with redundant numbers.

There are four (4) plaintiffs and six (6) defendants, all claiming the ten thousand dollars ($10,000). But only three (3) of the four (4) plaintiffs are entitled to recover from one (1) defendant.

Utter nonsense. Bryan Garner, the guru of not only legal writing, but also of all American writing, calls this a “noxious habit.”

Many legalisms once had a purpose – but the purpose has long since evaporated. But we keep the legalisms – think of the couplets: free and clear, null and void and the rest. The reason for them expired about 1000 years ago, but some of us still use them.

That’s the case with these parenthetical numericals:

In Charles Dickens’s time, writing was difficult – physically. Quill pens were hard to use. Too much ink and it dripped; too little and words weren’t clear. You had to keep the quill sharpened with a little instrument called a pen knife.

And penmanship really mattered. If a promissory note for four hundred pounds could be changed to five hundred by dotting the top of the u in the four and putting a squiggle on the end to make an e, then five hundred pounds might be owed. To prevent this, scribes started using a parenthetical numerical: (£400).

But it is unlikely that our laser printers – or even typewriters – will confuse four with five, or $400 with $500. So for at least 100 years, there has been no reason for this practice, but inertia carries it forward. Even though we don’t know why, we keep doing it. And it spills over into other areas:

We can guess how this happened. The ad department probably had to “run it by legal.” The legal department, being composed of lawyers, inserted the parenthetical for no reason other than that’s what lawyers do. I guess the checkout person wouldn’t take the coupon otherwise.

In my seminars, I used to use Procter & Gamble coupons as good examples; they didn’t use the goofy parentheticals. But Gillette did, and after the merger, the goofyness has started infecting P & G coupons also.

Check your Sunday paper. Many of the coupons will have the parenthetical.

But here is one that doesn’t have the noxious parenthetical! Is there any doubt as to how many?

At my seminars, I will usually have someone who says something such as, “I have a really big deal, so I want to use the ‘belt and suspender’ approach and do both words and numbers.” That is asking for trouble. When they don’t match, what controls? The words. What’s much more likely to be correct? The numbers – because they are easier to proofread. Three million, nine hundred forty-three thousand, two hundred fifty dollars is much harder to write and proof than $3,943,250.

When Procter & Gamble bought Gillette, a major transaction, they used all numbers.

There is never a reason to use parenthetical numericals – unless you are making a lawyer joke.

One final tip: do not use .00 if there are no cents involved.

Readability

I always show the readability levels for the column. They are 14 words per sentence, 4 percent passive voice, and grade level 8.2.

Mark Painter has served as a judge on the Ohio First District Court of Appeals for 14 years, after 13 years on the Hamilton County Municipal Court. In March 2009 he was elected by the United Nations General Assembly as the only American to serve on the United Nations Appeals Tribunal. He will assume that judgeship in July.

Judge Painter is the author of 380 nationally published decisions, 130 legal articles, and 6 books, including The Legal Writer: 40 Rules for the Art of Legal Writing, which is available at http://books.lawyersweekly.com. Judge Painter has given more than 100 seminars on legal writing. Contact him through his website, www.judgepainter.org.

An expanded version of this article appeared in the April/May issue of GPSolo Magazine.

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