typography-for-lawyers
Typography for Lawyers
A working reference distilled from Matthew Butterick's Typography for Lawyers (https://typographyforlawyers.com). It turns a document from typewriter output into professional typesetting. Use it to advise on, review, or apply typography to any legal or professional document.
The core idea
"Typography is the visual component of the written word" — and it exists for the reader, not
the writer. Good typography makes text more effective: it conserves the reader's attention (a
lawyer's scarcest resource) so more of it lands on the argument. It is not more important than good
writing, but it makes good writing better — and bad typography quietly undercuts it. There's no
separate "legal typography"; legal documents are held to the same standard as any professional
publishing, because lawyers are, functionally, publishers. When a judgment call isn't covered
below, favor more consistency with professional typography, not less. (The full reasoning,
including the two "Laws of Typography," the em, and how far to push formatting in court, is in
references/foundations.md.)