Readability Statistics: a Great Tool for Appellate Briefs

After law school, I served for two years as a judicial law clerk for a judge on the Court of Appeals of Indiana. It was by far the best experience to prepare me for a career in appellate and post-conviction law. I learned pretty quickly that appellate judges read A LOT of briefs. So if you want to stand out, you should write briefs that are clear, concise, and easy to read.

This is a lifelong pursuit, but I have discovered a tool that can help make briefs more readable. Microsoft Word provides readability statistics. To view these statistics for your briefs, go to File, then Options, then Proofing, and check “Show Readability Statistics.”

When you finish your brief, click on “Spelling & Grammar,” and spell-check your brief. At the end, Word will display your brief’s readability statistics. There are three statistics you want to pay particular attention to: words per sentence, the Flesch Reading Ease score, and the percentage of passive sentences.

A brief that is easy to read will use shorter sentences, having a high reading-ease score, and use a small percentage of passive sentences. Aim for the following:

• fewer than 27 words per sentence

• a Flesch Reading Ease score of higher than 30

• less than 20% passive sentences

This tool does not replace my normal routine of printing my brief and putting it through a good proofreading and editing. But like spell-checker, it only takes a minute to check readability and to ensure you have not overlooked anything.