HOW TO EFFECTIVELY USE TECHNOLOGY

tech toolbox
The Proof

D. Casey Flaherty
FORMERLY CORPORATECOUNSELcasey@costcontrolllc.com

104Ppl cn rd ths sntnc dspt th mssng vwls. The humanmind is amazing at pattern recognition. Our ability
to construct complete pictures from fragments is amarvel. It is also a necessity. Blind spots are not justpsychological and emotional. Medicine has longrecognized the punctum caecum (“blind point”) as
the location where the optic nerve passes throughthe optic disc resulting in an area devoid of photoreceptor cells. We are oblivious to our partial
blindness because our brains interpolate — i.e., fillin the gaps based on surrounding detail.
Automatically filling in the gaps, however,means we sometimes “see” things that aren’t actually there or miss things that are. And, every now
and then, the unexpected lacunas or details in thegaps are important. In those instances, seeing what
is in our mind can get in the way of seeing what is
actually in front of us. The realization that one ofour greatest perceptive powers is also among ourmost dangerous perceptive weaknesses can lead topoignant reflection on the human condition. But I
want to talk about proofreading.
We are terrible at proofreading our own material because we think we know what it says. We
tend to be 99.8 percent right. Unfortunately, 0.2
percent can matter. Typos are embarrassing. Theylower our esteem in the eyes of our reader (client,judge). They also create ambiguity that results inyears of litigation or millions of dollars in losses.
Lawyers sweat the small stuff because the small
stuff can become big stuff.
One of the greatest kindnesses I ever performed
for outside counsel was to require them to follow
a formal proofreading process. All items of any
import were given to an individual not involvedin their drafting and put through a proofreading
checklist. This mandate improved quality. It also
reduced cost despite my permitting the proofreader to bill. My outside counsel were fantastic,
but they were also imperfect perfectionists. Before
being authorized to bring in someone with noknowledge of the matter, they would repeatedly
pore over their own material in search of error.
They went to great effort (and expense) to suppress their humanity; they tried to read the text
like a machine.
Indeed, proofreading is an area where human plus machine is far better than human ormachine alone. Most of us are familiar with theASSOCIATION OF CORPORATE COUNSEL

limitations of Word’s built-in spelling and grammar checkers. In one breath we curse them fortheir weakness, while, in the next, we complainthat no one learns how to spell because we havegrown too reliant on our machines correcting us.
In truth, our standard word processing tools, cellphones and search engines do a competent job ofpointing out that we may not have written what
we intended to write.
There are many additional technology tools thatcan substantially augment our proofreading prowess. The first item on my proofreading checklist required the human proofreader to run specialized
proofreading software. The software went beyond
Word’s native capabilities in identifying potential misspellings, misused words, inconsistentformatting, inconsistent numbering, contractions,
blacklisted jargon, improper punctuation, etc.
One area where legal-specific proofreading
software has gotten particularly advanced is in thereview of contracts. The software can read a contract, or a series of interrelated contracts, to finderrors in numbering, cross-references and definedterms. This software does many things well. But,
probably most important is what the software does
not do. The software does not get bored. The software does not get distracted. That, and the second
set of machine eyes performs in seconds a review
that would take the most punctilious human hours
to complete.
There is even software that will improve yourwriting (not mine, I’m beyond help). Gary Kinder,a renowned legal writing instructor, recognizedthat many rules he preached could be automated.
He created a program that scans your draft documents for problematic words or phrases and thenrecommends superior alternatives you can accept
or reject. For example, the software will identify “westand in agreement that this section has pertinence
to any contract” and make several recommendations that get you to the more concise “we agree
this section pertains to any contract.” It’s like having
Kinder himself helping you — absent the fear of being judged harshly for your linguistic misdeeds.
Despite evidence to the contrary, lawyers are
human. Humans make mistakes. Humans also
have a hard time recognizing their own mistakes.
Fortunately, with common writing errors, there’s
an app for that. ACC