Peter Smythe, P.C.

A Judge Kres­sel No-​No

Judge Robert Kres­sel of the Min­ne­sota Ban­kruptcy Court recently published gui­de­li­nes for law­yers sub­mit­ting pro­po­sed orders to his court. Here are a few of his rules:

Gui­de­line No. 6 — Capitalization

Law­yers appa­rently love to capi­ta­lize words. Plea­dings, inc­lu­ding pro­po­sed orders, are com­monly full of words that are capi­ta­li­zed, not quite ran­domly, but cer­tainly with great aban­don. Please limit the use of capi­ta­li­za­tion to pro­per names. For exam­ple, do no capi­ta­lize court, motion, movant, deb­tor, trus­tee, order, affi­da­vit, sti­pu­la­tion, mort­gage, lease or any other of the nume­rous words that are com­monly capitalized.

Gui­de­line No. 12 — Undersigned.

Never use the word “undersigned.”

Gui­de­line No. 17 — Its and It’s

Please use the pos­ses­sive noun “its” and the con­trac­tion “it’s” correctly.

Since law­yers are sup­po­sed to be pro­fes­sio­nal wri­ters, Judge Kressel’s gui­de­li­nes shouldn’t be neces­sary. But so they are.

Here is the entire order — Judge-​Kressel-​Order-​Preparation-​Guidelines.

Hat tip to Law­ye­rist.

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