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« Last Night's Memorial for Paul Violi at the Poetry Project [by Stacey Harwood] | Main | On Teaching Poetry in Prison - Cara Benson »

June 15, 2011

"It Can Always Be Shorter . . . "

Chief Justice Roberts relates a telling story from his 1981 clerkship for then-Justice William Rehnquist. Upon reviewing Roberts' draft, Rehnquist circled vast amounts of the Roberts effort and instructed him to put that material in the footnotes.

"So I went back and gave him a draft with all that stuff in footnotes," whereupon Rehnquist "looked at it and said, 'Fine, now cut out all the footnotes.' "

Message to the then-law clerk and future chief justice: It can always be shorter.

From  "Skip The Legalese And Keep It Short, Justices Say" by Nina Totenberg.  Read the full story here.

-- sdh

Posted by on June 15, 2011 at 12:00 AM |

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Comments

Excellent advice. -- DL

Posted by: The Best American Poetry | June 15, 2011 at 06:50 PM

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