In-House Counsel

3 Examples Of Narrow Perspectives, And 1 Solution

Lawyers who work in all environments should strive to write simply and comprehensibly, but this is particularly important for folks who are in-house.

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I can’t bear it!

Lat was right: Online columns that start with an Arabic number draw many more readers than columns that start with a mere word. I briefly thought about calling today’s post: “1 Online Column!” Do you suppose you would have clicked through to “continue reading” that puppy?

Now, having stuck that “3 Examples” of narrow perspectives in my title, I’ll have to gin up three examples. Life ain’t fair.

Example number one of a narrow perspective:

During college, I was working at a summer job, putting tar on roofs for minimum wage. (Being a lawyer is much better. As my then seven-year-old son said of my law office many years ago, “It’s air-conditioned, and you can get a root beer whenever you want one.“)

But back to tarring roofs: Way back when, there was another college guy sweating away next to me. (This was New Jersey in August. When you got over the edge of the roof onto the ladder, you instantly felt cool. And when you got to the ground, you saw that the thermometer in that nice, cool air read just over 100.)

I asked the guy where he was in college.

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“MSU.”

Memphis State University? (As I said, this was way back when. The school has been called the University of Memphis for the last couple of decades.) Mississippi State? Montana State? Missouri State? Or Michigan State?

He knew what he was thinking. And, if we shared some common background, I also might have known what he was thinking. But not when we were tarring a roof just outside Trenton; “MSU” was gibberish.

Several years later, I arrived at The University of Michigan Law School. (When you’re standing in Ann Arbor, you know full well what “MSU” means.) I met a fellow classmate and asked him where he was from.

“Livonia.”

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“Gesundheit!”

If you were born and raised in Michigan, then you expect everyone to know that Livonia is basically a suburb of Detroit. But that would be like a Trenton boy saying that he was from “Exit 7.” The meaning of “Exit 7” isn’t so clear in Kalamazoo. Think about your audience.

I’m guilty of parochialism, too, of course. Although I’ve been living in London for a while, my home in the States is in upstate Illinois. I recently visited Malta, and a local asked me where I was from. I said that I now lived in London, but that I had moved there from Chicago.

“America???”

Right.

Only my parochialism made me think that someone in Malta would recognize Chicago as a major American city.

And the Civil War? If that phrase brings Lincoln and Gettysburg to mind, then you’re thinking narrowly; where I (now) come from, the Civil War ran from 1642 to 1651, and included the beheading of a king.

Greenwich? Don’t get me started. I’ve had my mind’s eye on the wrong continent several times in the past three years.

(When I wrote, several paragraphs above, that the thermometer “read 100,” I was of course again displaying my cultural bias. Only five countries in the world still use Fahrenheit.)

Example number two:

Although Above the Law draws readers globally, it’s largely staffed by American writers who breathe American air and assume American thoughts. Our collective parochialism reflects itself in the words we type and the reactions we anticipate.

Example 1: Health insurance? You basically get it through your employer.

Example 2: Guns? Anyone who wants one can buy one. The real question is about concealed carry.

Example 3: Employees’ rights? Almost everyone is employed at will. If your employer doesn’t want you, you’re essentially gone tomorrow.

Example 4: The government? If a government regulator asked for a sneak preview of your corporation’s earnings for the quarter that’s closing this week, or the products that you plan to launch next year, you’d tell the regulator to take a hike.

Folks from (1) anywhere in Europe, (2) Australia, (3) France, or (4) the United Kingdom, respectively, would do a double-take when they read columns about those subjects, until the reader realized that you were implicitly speaking as an American.

Finally, my third example of a narrow perspective — and my point. (You knew I’d get there eventually.) (Okay, okay: You were hoping I’d get there eventually.)

I got an internal email last year with the subject line, “DC,” and the message that I should call to discuss next month’s DC meeting.

Shoot! I’m due in the nation’s capital, and I haven’t yet booked a flight?

No. Why would I be going there?

Oh! We must have an issue in the defined contribution space, as opposed to defined benefits. I wonder what it is.

Only when I called the person did I learn that we were thinking about next month’s “Disclosure Committee” meeting (at which we discuss certain significant matters with folks at the helm of securities disclosure and the like).

I don’t think that I get confused unusually easily. But, over time, I’m beginning to believe that nobody actually communicates with anyone any more. I see memos going to very senior lawyers talking about the “PI” issue. Any (legal) reader of ordinary intelligence would stumble past “personal injury” and “preliminary injunction” before finally realizing that we’re thinking about “professional indemnity” insurance.

I spend a fair amount of my professional life simply translating English into English. (It’s remarkable that anyone would pay me for that skill. But it seems to be in short supply.) For reports that go to senior executives (or the public), think about whether QDRO (a Qualified Domestic Relations Order) is gibberish or a concept that a reader will grasp. Is Section 166 (a type of report that can be issued by a British regulator) a meaningful phrase or a sharp stick in the eye? If you’re in finance, you’re using words that non-finance people simply don’t grasp. If you’re in IT, you’re talking about technology — and all I wanted was magic. If you’re in HR, you may well use the TRS to record people’s ARLs every day. But the rest of us don’t.

And, of course, if you’re in law, you’re speaking your own type of code. The typical non-lawyer doesn’t know the difference between Rule 11 (under which a naughty litigant can be sanctioned in federal court) and Section 11 (which governs certain securities disclosures). If you’re writing to a non-lawyer — or even to a lawyer who toils in a different field than you do — think about how your reader will react to your words. It’s easy enough to avoid jargon and to use words — little words, that ordinary people will understand — to convey your meaning.

Lawyers who work in all environments should strive to write simply and comprehensibly, but this is particularly important for folks who are in-house. If you can communicate in words that your readers (or listeners) outside of the law department can actually understand, you’ll be a valued member of your team.

That’s breathtakingly easy (and painless) to do, and it can be worth a great deal to your career.

IMHO.

Mark Herrmann is Vice President and Deputy General Counsel – Litigation and Employment 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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