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On Bragging Effectively (In Résumés And Briefs)

Wise advice from in-house columnist Mark Herrmann that's relevant to both résumé writing and brief writing.

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If you’ve really got it, then you don’t have to flaunt it.

Let me start with résumés and move on to briefs.

Years ago, I had to draft a declaration to be signed by Larry Bird. I naturally checked Bird’s Wikipedia page and started writing long paragraphs about how he had played for Indiana State, reached the finals of the NCAA tournament, been drafted by the Celtics, made the all-NBA first team a few times and the all-NBA second team a few times, led his team to the NBA Finals several times, been chosen as an all-star 12 times, won Olympic gold with the 1992 “Dream Team,” and on and on.

And then it occurred to me: If you’re a schlub, you have to say all that. But if you’re Larry Bird, you’ve really got the goods. You don’t need to drone on. You just have to say: “I’m Larry Bird. Yes, that Larry Bird.” That’s plenty.

So I threw away the first draft of the declaration and re-wrote it as though Larry Bird were actually a pretty good basketball player. I wrote something like: “I, Larry Bird, declare: I was formerly a professional basketball player. I spent my entire professional career with the Boston Celtics, where we won the NBA championship three times, and I was selected for the NBA All-Star team 12 times.”

In other words: “I’m Larry Bird. Yes, that Larry Bird.” ‘nuf said.

(Sadly, we never actually filed the declaration. Such is life.)

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I confronted the same issue a couple of months ago. My son, Jeremy (you remember him), is in his last year of medical school and so applying for residency programs. (Have I really been writing this column for four years now? Heaven help me.) Jeremy naturally had to draft a résumé as part of the process. And the résumé had to show that he’s not only done okay in his classes, but is also a well-rounded guy.

Unlike his father, Jeremy plays squash. He sent me a draft résumé that said that he’d played squash for a long time, competed for his college, been selected for the all-academic team a few times, won the most improved player award twice, served as captain of his team in his senior year, competed for the United States in an international competition, finished his senior year ranked pretty high in the country, blah, blah, blah.

Don’t get me wrong: Jeremy’s no Larry Bird. But, as far as playing squash goes, he’s not bluffing. I suggested that his résumé might be stronger if it actually said less about his squash career.

I convinced Jeremy. (That makes me about 1 for 40 in the last year.) He cut down the entries on the résumé to just two or three, including four years of varsity squash, captain of the team, and playing internationally. And then, in a flash of brilliance, he included in his personal statement the fact that he had “won the most improved player award on my college squash team twice — the first player in school history to have done so. (That may well speak more to the length of the journey I had before me when I entered college than the quality of my play.)”

Brilliant (in the eyes of his unbiased dad)! He cut the entries on his résumé to the minimum needed to prove that he wasn’t bluffing and then burnished his credentials with some self-deprecating humor. Perfect! (Now we just have to see if any program accepts the kid. I hope I didn’t just jinx him.)

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Does this have anything to do with law?

Remarkably, it does.

First, if you’ve done two or three things that are actually impressive, consider listing those two or three items on your firm (or individual) résumé as “representative examples” of your achievements. And then stop. Landing one serious article in a reasonably well-respected journal is far more impressive than having prepared handouts for six CLE courses sponsored by the local bar association and having had your name appended to nine “client advisories” self-published by the firm.

If you’ve really got it, then you don’t have to flaunt it. Specify the impressive thing; cut the rest.

So, too, with citing cases in briefs.

If the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision yesterday on facts identical to mine, and the Court squarely held that the guy in my position wins, how many cases would we cite in our brief?

If you have any sense at all, you cite just one case. If the Supreme Court really says that you win, then you can stop talking. (Or, as K.C. Jones may have told Larry Bird, “Once you get close, don’t try to get closer. Just shoot.”)

But lawyers seem compulsively unable to do this. Even though the California Supreme Court says that your client wins, the brief must note that many California appellate cases reach the same result. And it doesn’t stop there! The “accord” footnote explains that courts in many other jurisdictions have reached similar results (as proved by a string cite of cases unaccompanied by parentheticals).

This doesn’t simply not help; it’s affirmatively harmful. If you really had one or two controlling cases, the small number of cases you cited in your brief would reflect your confidence in the righteousness of your cause. And, whether or not you have one or two controlling cases, string cites unaccompanied by parentheticals add nothing but length to your brief. No one — no judge, no clerk, no opposing counsel, not even you on the night before argument — is ever going to read a case stuck into one of those string cites. And you know this. So why on earth would you possibly include those cites in the brief?

In briefs, as in résumés, less can be more. If you’ve really got it, just let the reader know. There’s no need to flaunt it.

Mark Herrmann is the Chief Counsel – Litigation and Global Chief Compliance Officer at Aon, the world’s leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital and management consulting. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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