Major pet peeve | Imamother

33055

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 10:49 am

amother [ Smokey ] wrote:

Don't worry. I was an A student, an English major, am now a lawyer, and can attest that a bunch of these posters are talking out of their @ss. I practice a kind of corporate law and my writing skills help me, but there are plenty of Associates who aren't great writers and are still fantastic lawyers. You likely have to be able to read, analyze, research and cite, depending what kind of law you practice. But the vast majority of writing people do in efficient corporate firms is template-based, so you're basically conducting a legal analysis, and inputting data into the templates. Plus, attorneys have paras drafting half the stuff anyway, and they're conducting review.

Every law firm does need some good writers, but that doesn't mean that you need to be a great writer to be an attorney.

You need to be a somewhat decent writer to get the grades to get into law school and get the grades that gets you hired by a corporate law firm, even one that practices a kind of corporate law.

I am looking at your post and could edit your punctuation, if I wanted to be obnoxious and vice versa. You can get your point across. That's perfectly fine; although, there is no need for vulgarity. You could probably edit my posts, especially if I am doing something else at the time.

But when I work for a frum organization, with approximately 30 frum employees, and no one is allowed to send out anything without my reveiw because of all the complaints management got, that's terrible.

I also worked for a business in Monsey that couldn't write anything professional. They even spelled their name on their website two different ways. They had a great product with good pricing and monopolized the local frum markets. They couldn't get a toehold in Westchester because of their sloppy promotional material. It became my responsibility to correct their marketing material. (I wrote about this years before this thead. )

33055

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 11:05 am

amother [ Bisque ] wrote:

My greatest pet peeve is people who are condescending and think that they are better than others.

Everyone has strengthens and weaknesses.
FYI, an inability to spell is often genetically linked and does not reflect intelligence.
Remember the thread on math and percentages? Some of us can do that instinctively in our heads and are more polarized in regard to cognitive function.

Would you rather women felt self-conscious and insecure about their writing skills or felt comfortable sharing their knowledge and opinions?

I like reading most women's opinions. The ones I can't bother reading are the ones in text speak.

I dislike reading things like I ate by my mother's house because logically I start thinking that she ate near her mother's house. I like reading when I don't have to decode.

I had a secretary from an inner city ghetto who could turn on and off ghetto speak at will. I assume those that write in text have the same ability, but lack the respect for the readers.

amother

Forestgreen

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 11:06 am

amother [ Lime ] wrote:

My hilchus shabbos teacher in school was full of ussa, mutta and would wonder why we were giggling

was your teacher British by any chance? Becuase in England we dont say the 'r' like Americans do, you know...

you dont pronounce the r so it really does souund like ossa and mutta.

just saying. Americans often dont seem to realize that there is a world outside America and Israel

amother

Azure

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 11:09 am

Squishy wrote:

I am looking at your post and could edit your punctuation, if I wanted to be obnoxious and vice versa. You can get your point across. That's perfectly fine; although, there is no need for vulgarity. You could probably edit my posts, especially if I am doing something else at the time.

But when I work for a frum organization, with approximately 30 frum employees, and no one is allowed to send out anything without my reveiw because of all the complaints management got, that's terrible.

Didn't management realize what the problem was?

amother

Royalblue

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 11:13 am

amother [ Smokey ] wrote:

I'm not challenging your experience, or suggesting that you are "talking out of your posterior" (as you so elegantly put it), but your experience is limited to whatever small niche practice you have.

Attorneys need to write and communicate extremely well. Legal memoranda are not "canned" except at the lowest level of practice, and even then they need to be adapted to the particular facts of the case in a clear and cogent manner. Nor are deal memos, LOIs, or other corporate documents other than, perhaps, corporate minutes for the first meeting written using anything other than the broadest form of template.

Indeed, the only legal area I can think of in which one does not need to write well is patent prosecution.

amother

Wine

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 11:32 am

Squishy wrote:

I like reading posters here who write like they would speak. One or two times reading "by" used to mean "at" and my brain gets it no problem. I don't even live in a community where people talk like this IRL Smile

amother

Lime

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 12:24 pm

amother [ Forestgreen ] wrote:

No- more american than me! Was ok. We were silly teenagers who thought we were so cool...

33055

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 1:37 pm

amother [ Azure ] wrote:

Didn't management realize what the problem was?

They realized the problem is with the schools. This was obvious. The frum employees are the product of frum education. I promise, I did nothing to advance my position of overseeing everything that came out of the organization. I was the only one without complaints. The extra work was not worth the increase in salary.

When my oldest was in the second grade, I realized he wrote better sentences than his teacher. She had trouble with simple declarative statements. That was a shock to me. Later on, she was hired by the school that has the best reputation for "English" studies. How do you teach something you don't know? How are the administrations not overseeing this?

Sunny Days

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 1:41 pm

Squishy wrote:

Frum (girls) schools in Brooklyn actually have a very good English curriculum, so don’t blame the schools.

33055

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 1:43 pm

amother [ Royalblue ] wrote:

I was thinking patent law also. It is a "kind of corporate law".

33055

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 1:55 pm

gamzehyaavor wrote:

Frum (girls) schools in Brooklyn actually have a very good English curriculum, so don’t blame the schools.

Your idea and my idea of an excellent education are different.

Please give me an alternate theroy of why every person educated in the Yeshiva system there would get complaints about their written communications. The staff was about half Male and half female. Please explain how you can have teachers who can't write better than their second grade students.

I think you must blame their education. There are enough people coming out of the Yeshiva system with gaps.

How many threads are there here on here with ladies asking about supplementing English studies. Obviously, I am not the only one who perceives a problem.

To be clear, it's not every student, but it's a big problem. (There are others who will thrive in any school environment. )

amother

Peach

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 6:42 pm

amother [ Royalblue ] wrote:

I'm not the poster you were responding to, but I agree with her that in some areas of law it's not necessary for a lawyer to be a good writer. L&T comes to mind, as well as most civil court matters. You have your templates of previous winning motions, then tweak the facts to fit. Estate planning relies heavily on templates, and estate administration, if simple and uncontested, also uses standard forms.

moonstone

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 4:22 am

amother [ Wine ] wrote:

Oh, I understand the Yinglish, that's not the problem. When I read a sentence like "My sister stayed by me all week besides for Sunday," I know what the person means. It's just terrible English and makes them sound like they just got off the boat. Nails on a chalkboard!

amother

Sienna

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 4:50 am

amother [ Peach ] wrote:

Yup and the judges don't respect at L & T attorneys who can't write.

And probate attorneys better hope they can go their entire career without a contested estate because even if they aren't litigators, they will be called as witnesses. They will have to write then.

amother

Peach

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 6:06 am

amother [ Sienna ] wrote:

There's very little original writing involved altogether for L&T lawyers. As for earning the respect of L&T judges...If you're writing that, I'm fairly certain this isn't your area.

I don't understand your second paragraph. A lawyer can choose not to take on a case. Lawyers who don't do estate litigation don't take on those cases.

Why would a lawyer be called as a witness on someone else's litigated estate case? But even if he was, he couldn't then also be the attorney.

And even then, why would a witness need to write? And if he was asked to sign an affidavit, the lawyer handling the case would generally either prepare it or proof it.

Laiya

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 6:13 am

moonstone wrote:

People seem to have very strong reactions to these errors, like OP who started this thread. Why is it so grating?

yerushamama

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 6:49 am

I guess that since I now live overseas, and my kids speak English like new immigrants, I have gotten used to poorly spoken English. I am also fine with people writing (typing) the way they speak in informal or semi-formal situations like these posts. What bothers me more are obvious errors in books that seem to have been proofread by spellcheck rather than an educated human being! Smile

amother

Sienna

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 8:04 am

amother [ Peach ] wrote:

don't know if you are correct. I worked for a L & T firm basically representing LLs. There was research and briefs to write. I worked on loft law cases. They were anything but boilerplate, at least in those days. I also clerked for a judge. I can remember what was said in chambers and among my colleagues.

Estates and Trusts isn't your field obviously. The answers to your questions are clear. If you are an attorney, you should know these. You even said in your post that if the estate is uncontested, there is no writing. How do you know to take on work that will never be contested even decades in the future.

Anyway, lawyers have to write with enough clarity to pass the bar (except maybe in Pennsylvania). That's a decent enough common denominator. This side discussion started when a poster claimed that a law school student couldn't write.

amother

Smokey

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 9:05 am

I don't do patent law. The MBE on the bar exam is multiple choice. There are essay portions on some state exams, but it's a rush to issue spot; you're definitely not being graded on your spelling or grammar. Most lawyers aren't litigating in court either.

As I previously wrote, lawyers need to be literate and have good analysis skills. I know plenty of associates who are not great writers and are still great attorneys. You need to have some good writers in the office, but my point is, if you struggle with grammar or spelling there's still room for you in law.

If you want to scrutinize my grammar or spelling, go ahead. I mentioned I was a 4.0 English major not to boast about my writing but to stress the exact opposite to someone who is insecure about their writing; it doesn't matter to me. I used to care when I was young, immature, and wasn't tuned in to other people's life experiences. Today I certainly don't proofread my every imamother post before hitting Submit like I'm actually getting graded on this. Sue me.

Actually, I'll deliberately leave 54 grammar and/or spelling mistakes in this post. Good luck finding them all!