Spell Out Legal

01 Dec Spell Out Legal

On the other hand, good legal writing can be both interesting and entertaining (as Justice Posner and others have shown time and time again). • If it is an approximate number (e.g. “about six hundred years ago”), it should be given. From what my research shows (limited as always), the origin of the practice of spelling or spelling all numbers and then including the numbers in parentheses is lost to history. Let us not even talk about capitalization; or why the author of this horror thought that distances should be specified, but not the directions of the compass; or why the area (square footage) at the end of the list is not specified. If you ask most lawyers why they do it this way, they don`t get an answer. The benefits of simply writing down the numbers are obvious. Only one number must be inserted or changed. It also takes up less space and makes a document less “legal”. A very experienced lawyer once told me that he preferred to write only the numbers, because if you both write the number with words and add the numbers, what do you do if they don`t match? When it comes to advice on what to do when writing numbers in other documents – even legal documents – it`s not a difficult decision. Do not spell large numbers. It`s extra work for you, extra work for your readers, and it makes mistakes more likely to creep into your documents. Keep it simple and use numbers as much as possible (as outlined in the style guide you`re using).

Details are crucial in a legal document. If a document contains a dollar amount, such as: an amount due for an invoice, the exact amount should be clear to each reader. For this purpose, dollars and cents are written in legal documents in words and numbers. This ensures that the right amount is understood, especially if it is a large and uneven amount. Style manuals agree that you should not mix and match spelled numeric words (e.g., eleven) and numbers (e.g., 12) in the same sentence or paragraph. Therefore, if you indicate the number of books read by children in the summer curriculum of an elementary school and a student has read more than a hundred books, you must use numbers for each of them. This is partly true. What is known as a unified commercial code regulates the form and validity of transactions such as bank checks and stipulates that written numbers take precedence over numbers in case of disagreement.

It is not a federal law, but it has been passed in a very similar form by each state. Others suggest that it is (or is) a long-standing anti-fraud measure: numbers alone would be relatively easy to change in a document without much risk of detection, but changing the numbers and the full version would carry a greater risk that fraud would be easily detected (by causing a problem with the original word spacing and document size, for example). As proof, commentators often cite the “fact” or the “law” that if there is a discrepancy between the words and numbers on the cashier`s check, the words win. If you want to spell integers with multiple words between 22 and 99, use hyphens. Twenty-three The Chicago Manual of Style, The Bluebook, and the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation suggest spelling numbers from zero to ninety-nine. The Oregon Courts of Appeals style manual states that numbers should be spelled from zero to nine (as the Bulletin does), and Chicago acknowledges that this alternative is popular in some publications. All style guides list exceptions, regardless of their rule. Since the style guides don`t match, you can choose. “The best practice is to spell all numbers ten and less and use numbers for 11 and more.” Their claim that “a slipped decimal can have great consequences” does not negate this. Rather, it is an argument for proper verification of documents, particularly their paragraphs. If the accuracy of the terms of an agreement is due to a slipped decimal, someone has not done their job. For numbers, only one set of numbers needs to be verified.

Adding words increases the possibility (and probability) of an error. The written form, in my opinion and in my experience, is also less likely to be properly checked and is more likely to contain errors or become open to interpretation – a particularly worrying issue since written figures outweigh figures in most countries. Disclaimer: Gentry Law Group, LLC has provided this blog to give us a way to describe our thoughts and analyses that we think might be useful to the public. In no case is it legal advice and should not be used as such. This blog does not establish an attorney-client relationship between you and Gentry Law Group, LLC. This blog is not a substitute for legal advice from a licensed lawyer. But we hope you found it interesting and useful! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Suzanne E. Rowe is Professor James L. and Ilene R.

Hershner at the University of Oregon School of Law, where she directs the Legal Research and Writing Program. She thanked the students at her fall writing colloquium for their comments on an earlier version that was far too long and far too dry. • Numbers that begin with sentences must be written. Posted on July 30, 2021 by thebettereditor. Legal drafting can be dry; It can be annoying. At worst, it can be downright horrific: not just exaggerated and tortured. Not many things in professional writing really make me angry, but this is one of them.* Some numbers **/must/**be spelled out – especially financial, where a slipped decimal can have big consequences.* In any letter, it`s boring to spell large numbers instead of numbers. It`s worse in legal drafting. To appear well on the page in the first place, extra effort is required, and then additional checking. The probability of error increases with each step. Moreover, from the reader`s point of view, this approach makes it difficult to read a document.

If only a small number of applications are affected, this may not cause too many problems.