Manatt appellate partner Benjamin Shatz authored an article for Daily Journal that discusses several legal writing habits that have become outdated due to the use of modern technology, most notably the use of leading zeroes in citation and parenthetical numbering. In the article, Shatz notes that while these writing practices were initially to ensure clarity and prevent forgery of legal documents when they were written by hand, the use of computers and type-written legal documents means that there is no need to continue these traditions. He also discusses how a new rule might help clarify how asterisks are used to let court clerks know which lawyers to contact in order to reduce “sending unnecessary notices to multiple lawyers at the same firm.”
Read the article here.