Legal Grammar and Punctuation Rules

Perhaps one of the most common errors in punctuation is its relationship and placement in quotation marks. Many people seem more comfortable putting their quotation marks before punctuation (e.g., Mr. Smith stated that “the driver appeared drunk at the scene”). Although some authors still use them and rely on the absence or presence of a comma to indicate whether the modifier is restrictive or non-restrictive, legal drafters must follow the traditional rule of using comma for restrictive modifiers and non-comma modifiers for non-restrictive modifiers. While the above statements can only confuse someone reading the outcome of a case, there are best practices for legal grammar rules to avoid uncertainties during a case that could result from incorrect punctuation and sentence structure. You should also be careful when placing other punctuation marks at the end of quotation marks. Commas and periods are always enclosed in quotation marks: punctuation is a component of writing that people rarely think about or notice, except when it is wrong. At worst, misused punctuation marks — commas, semicolons, quotation marks, and the like — can confuse the meaning of your sentences and leave your reader confused and frustrated. Even less glaring mistakes, such as a missing or misplaced apostrophe, can make your written work look like carelessness and lack of attention. Search for your punctuation question on Grammar Girl. (Link) However, if you`re incorporating quotes into your own sentence, you don`t need introductory punctuation: it`s important to constantly read your handwriting as you go through a legal document. If you do, you can spot potential errors and ambiguities caused by punctuation.

When you read long pages, your brain goes into scan-read mode, and you`re more likely to read sentences the way your brain thinks they should be, rather than as they`re written. It`s also helpful to read after taking (at least) a few hours to look at the document if you have time. The rules for using other punctuation marks in quotation marks are quite simple. If you introduce a quote with a phrase such as “He said,” “The record says,” or “As Justice Scalia wrote,” you must use a comma before the quotation marks: This blog is governed by the general rules of respectful civil speech. You are fully responsible for everything you post. The content of all comments will be placed in the public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise. The Library of Congress does not control published content. Nevertheless, the Library of Congress may monitor user-generated content at its discretion and reserves the right to remove content for any reason without consent.

Free links to websites are considered spam and may result in comments being deleted. We also reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to revoke a user`s right to post content on the Library website. Read our comment and posting guidelines. There are several cases where a legal translation service provider may be required for international or multilingual litigation. In such cases, linguists should be aware of the different uses of grammar and punctuation in the languages they work with. Quotation marks are another point of contention in writing, especially when it comes to the rules for placing them next to other punctuation marks. As a general rule, and to ensure absolute clarity in legal documents, a direct quotation should be provided entirely with its original punctuation and placed in quotation marks. Everything outside the quotation marks belongs to the sentence in which the quote is written. Dot is the British English term for this punctuation mark, and dot is the American English term for it. Points should be used in the following situations: In this post, I pointed out the disadvantages of passive: that it can be wordy and dry, and that it is overused in legal drafting. But I also recognized that he had his place.

We should not ban all passive construction; Liabilities have legitimate uses, and here are three. A famous example of another expensive comma placement commonly cited in legal circles is the million-dollar comma. A Canadian cable television provider and a telephone company disagreed over the terms of termination of the contract. Citing punctuation rules, Canada`s telecommunications regulator ruled that Bell Aliant, the telephone company, could terminate its five-year agreement with Rogers, the television provider, at any time with notice because a certain comma was present. The flexible rules we used at the university are not sufficient for the legal work we are doing now. Inconsistent or incorrect use of commas in these three areas can lead to confusion and ambiguity and cost your customers dearly. Until you memorize these rules and can apply them consistently, look for them every time you write. Another form of punctuation that lawyers avoid is hyphens. Hyphens appear generously in other forms to connect compound words and sentences, but a hyphen (usually longer than a regular hyphen) can be inserted to create a pause in thought or give a slight bridge to a new clause.

The rules of use are vague enough to give the freedom to use instinctively if you think a paragraph could use other forms of pauses, but be careful not to use just a hyphen where a semicolon or comma would be more appropriate! The court`s final decision was in favor of delivery drivers, who argued that the absence of a comma meant that “packing for shipping or distribution” was an action. As a result, drivers were entitled to overtime pay for their sales work. The state of Maine, on the other hand, has learned an important lesson in the rules of legal grammar. The typical comma appears to be either overused or underutilized in most documents – including various types of legal writing. Since you should focus on increasing the quality of your legal documents through the proper use of punctuation, it is imperative to learn the art of putting commas in your sentences. Legal drafting experts and drafters stress the importance of clarity and precision, as ambiguous wording in legal documents can have serious consequences. According to the authors of the Legislative Drafter`s Desk Reference, who both spent decades as editors in the House Legislative Counsel`s Office, punctuation can influence the court`s interpretation of the law. To ensure that a law is clear and unambiguous, the authors advise that “when establishing a number of points in a sentence . The last two elements of the series, like the previous elements, must always be separated by a comma.

(p. 271). They warn that while the use of the last comma in popular writings may be discouraged, not including the last comma in the bill could lead to misinterpretation of the law. Other legislative guides also recommend using the serial comma to avoid misinterpretation of the law (see Legislative Drafter`s Deskbook: a Practical Guide by Tobias A. Dorsey). It should be noted that the Maine Legislative Drafting Manual generally discourages the use of serial commas. Quotations are subject to a number of rules that go beyond the scope of this discussion. For instructions in the correct citation format, you should check the Bluebook, our Bluebook page, or the Cornell and Lexis Nexis websites dedicated to citation style. One of the best-known examples of a misplaced comma that has serious legal consequences occurred in 2006. Bell Aliant was able to terminate a fixed 5-year contract with Rogers Communications (a Canadian telecommunications giant) due to a comma in the contract.

In the end, this error cost Rogers Communications a total of $2.13 million. However, Rogers appealed the decision on the grounds that the French version of the treaty contained the correct use of the comma. This story is often referred to as the “million-dollar comma.” The Oxford comma rules state that there should have been a comma between “shipping” and “or”. The absence of a comma in this case makes it difficult to determine whether “packaging for shipment or distribution” is a single activity or whether “packaging for shipment or distribution” is a separate activity from simple “distribution”. In the first case, only packaging for dispatch and distribution would be exempted from overtime, while in the second case, packaging for dispatch and distribution would be exempted. In most legal documents, the hyphens used in the text appear to be intentionally perceptible to most readers. Although hyphens and hyphens are regularly used in many different spellings, two specific types of hyphens – hyphen and hyphen – play an important role in legal drafting. At The Attic, we`ve recently looked at the reduction of legal language and why more and more lawyers and companies are making their legal contracts less wordy. In fact, simple language is only one part of digesting complicated and detailed information, and punctuation and structure play a crucial role in how our brains process what we read.