Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Typos: It’s called “Practicing” Law for a reason

Yesterday, ChicagoNow Blogger Extraordinaire Jen Fernicola had a piece about the number of typos in the complaints that she reads day in and day out for her blog. (As an aside, her site is a great resource for seeing what’s happening in the land of Plaintiff’s work in Chicago and I highly recommend it.) In this post, she highlights the typical mistakes that occur in lawyers reusing complaints. Me, being the sarcastic twit that I am, agreed with the post in a sarcastic twit-like comment.

That was yesterday.

Today, I was preparing a filing for federal court. I was 36 hours behind schedule with this motion and in a rush to get everything together and electronically filed. I opened a prior notice of motion form, entered the new date, saved it as a PDF and uploaded it into the Federal Judiciary Interwebsosphere.

I then realized the Judge’s name and courtroom, proudly set forth in boldface font, were both wrong. Hellllllllooooo glaring typo.

Here’s the thing: this sure isn’t the first time I’ve done this and it sure won’t be the last. In law school, I remember my first year talking with classmates asking how on earth could typos happen in briefs submitted to a court. “What sloppy attorneys. What hacks. We can’t wait to take their jobs!!!” Now, I am one of those sloppy losers.


I try and learn from my typographical faux pas but that doesn’t mean that I am free from the gaffe now and then. I can only beg the court’s forgiveness when I forget to spell check, misstate names or leave off attachments.

I’m not a total hack. I’m just a busy hack. That’s learning as he flies by the seat of his pants.