Northern District of Texas Blog

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has put out “Suggestions for Typography in Briefs” (available here) that contains a number of suggestions for typography in briefs. Notable points include:

• “Studies have shown that long passages of serif type are easier to read and comprehend than long passages of sans-serif type.” In other words, use fonts like Times New Roman and New Century Schoolbook, rather than fonts like Ariel, in your briefs. The vast majority of briefs use Times New Roman, so this piece of advice is already being followed.

• Use proportionally spaced type, instead of monospaced type. Monospaced type is type with every character the same width, like Courier. Proportionally spaced type is type whose characters are not all the same width, like Times New Roman or Georgia. No book or magazine is set in monospaced type, so don’t use this in your briefs. Because most briefs are set in Times New Roman, this isn’t an issue.

• “Use typefaces that were designed for books. Both the Supreme Court and the Solicitor General use Century. Professional typographers set books in New Baskerville, Book Antiqua, Calisto, Century, Century Schoolbook, Bookman Old Style and many other proportionally spaced serif faces. Any face with the word ‘book’ in its name is likely to be good for legal work.” Specifically, the Solicitor General uses Century Expanded (see here), and it is our favorite type, and the Supreme Court uses New Century Schoolbook (see here). (This post is written in Georgia, as WordPress doesn’t contain any other typeface options). Most briefs we see use Times New Roman, but:

Professional typographers avoid using Times New Roman for book-length (or brief-length) documents. This face was designed for newspapers, which are printed in narrow columns, and has a small x-height in order to squeeze extra characters into the narrow space. Type with a small x-height functions well in columns that contain just a few words, but not when columns are wide (as in briefs and other legal papers). In the days before Rule 32, when briefs had page limits rather than word limits, a typeface such as Times New Roman enabled lawyers to shoehorn more argument into a brief. Now that only words count, however, everyone gains from a more legible typeface, even if that means extra pages. Experiment with your own briefs to see the difference between Times and one of the other faces we have mentioned.

• “Use italics, not underlining, for case names and emphasis. Case names are not underlined in the United States Reports, the Solicitor General’s briefs, or law reviews, for good reason. Underlining masks the descenders (the bottom parts of g, j, p, q, and y). This interferes with reading, because we recognize characters by shape. An underscore makes characters look more alike, which not only slows reading but also impairs comprehension.”

• “Put only one space after punctuation. The typewriter convention of two spaces is for monospaced type only. When used with proportionally spaced type, extra spaces lead to what typographers call ‘rivers’—wide, meandering areas of white space up and down a page. Rivers interfere with the eyes’ movement from one word to the next.”

• “Do not justify your text unless you hyphenate it too. If you fully justify unhyphenated text, rivers result as the word processing or page layout program adds white space between words so that the margins line up.” This piece of advice is widely not followed. Most briefs are fully justified, but not hyphenated.

• “Indent the first line of each paragraph 1/4 inch or less. Big indents disrupt the flow of text. The half-inch indent comes from the tab key on a typewriter. It is never used in professionally set type, where the normal indent is one em (the width of the letter ‘m’).” This piece of advice is also widely ignored, as most briefs indent the first line of each paragraph ½ inch.

• “Avoid bold type. It is hard to read and almost never necessary. Use italics instead. Bold italic type looks like you are screaming at the reader.”