This truth may be hard for some to hear: much business and legal writing is based more on tradition than on clarity or transmitting meaning. There, I said it. Too much of our writing is mired down in the muck of tradition to the point where we write things from forms and do it simply because, “We always do it that way.”
I’m going to let you in on a little secret here:
“Because that’s how we’ve always done it,” is a horrible reason for doing anything in a certain way. “That’s how we’ve always done it,” doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it, or even that it’s a good way to do it. It only means that someone did it that way first. Do we still fly on planes like the Wright Brothers built? I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been on any planes like that in at least a couple of years. You know, at one point, everyone could have used the reason, “Because that’s how it’s always been done,” to justify refusing to make any improvements on almost anything ever invented.
Do you want to be the type of person, the type of writer, who does something because that’s the way it’s always been done? Or do you want to be the person who looks at how it’s been done and sees all the ways that it could be made better? I’ll let you in on another secret (wow, I’m really dishing those out today!): you want to be the person who makes it better.
If you are using a template or form to write any sort of document—whether a contract,case brief, or anything else—the first thing you should do is make one major change to the form. Starting out with that one major change will give you the freedom to modify the form where necessary. If you’ve already strayed from it, why not stray from it some more?
There is certainly a place for forms and templates. They can be very helpful and get us by many of the initial obstacles to many writing projects. But they can also be dangerous. They can hold back progress. When using a form or template, you’ve got to realize that, just because it’s been that way, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be.
On the other hand, be sure not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” A form becomes a form because there is at least something in it that works. Try to keep the parts that work and drop the parts that don’t. Perhaps the problem with the form is not its substance, but the words used. Maybe you just need to modernize it a bit; give it a “plain language” checkup. For example, if you’re working from a form contract, be sure you get rid of the “party in the first part” language—that stuff is ridiculous, and there’s no reason for it.
Make your own traditions, don’t settle for others’. And don’t set your traditions in stone, it may be time to change them sooner than you think. Always be ready to make the product better.
