If you’re a seasoned lawyer (I’ve always had trouble with that adjective; feels like whatever noun it modifies is ready to be cooked), then you’ve had your share of writing pleadings. You know what that basically entails: reciting the facts of your case and citing the laws and decisions that apply to your facts.
The problem is, for most lawyers, we think that the only acceptable way to do a pleading means:
- Write in the passive voice.
- Write with nouns and nounisms.
- Simulate action by using the most exaggerated adjectives and adverbs known to man.
And so, with the zeal and fervor (un)becoming of barristers, we describe an unpaid debt of a few thousand pesos as –
a flagrant violation of plaintiff’s financial security, due to the highly prejudicial acts blatantly and fraudulently committed by the defendant with utmost malice and in gross and utter disregard of the plaintiff’s constitutionally-guaranteed right against deprivation of property without due process of law.”
We’re cursed and blindly follow the norm.
Break free once in a while.
Write to save your soul.
Feel exhilarated.
Breathe.
Blog.