ExposureBlog

Some time ago one of my clients asked me to review a report by opposing counsel’s expert.

The report began with a discussion of how the accident (made the basis of the lawsuit) was caused.  The rest of the report appeared to be an attempt to support that first sentence.  There were no references. Worse, some of the body of the report appeared to include material that had appeared elsewhere and under different circumstances. 

I was a little surprised.  The document wasn’t at all representative of the author, whom I knew was a smart guy and someone experienced in litigation support.  Perhaps his client asked him to make the report as brief as possible.  Maybe the report was just an example of his style. 

We all have our own style of writing, of course.  As an author of a history book I learned early to document everything.  Once I received a phone call from a copyeditor who worked for Macmillan (my publisher at the time).  She had read my account of the Cuban Missile Crisis and noted that I included the name of a small town near the coast of Cuba.  She couldn’t find it on the map.  I checked with a different Atlas.  Sure enough, it was there.  Twenty minutes later she called complaining that I had misspelled the word “Wurlitzer.”  The “u” needed an umlaut.

So, maybe I’m overly careful about referencing my reports.  Again, perhaps from my writing experience, I try to open up with a simple statement that includes a description of events based on what is known.  From there, I try to approach the event from the perspective of the witnesses.  In writing terms, this is referred to as a third person limited point of view.  After viewing the event from these different perspectives, a certain consensus began to emerge regarding how the accident event took place—the most likely scenario.  Some safety experts refer to this as the model.

Once the scenario/model has been established, I then usually discuss the responsibilities of each of the parties involved, and including other players (if any.)  Lastly, I discuss the event and responsibilities in view of violations of either established safety practices as reflected in the OSHA standards, Building Codes, local ordnances, etc.

Finally I write up the summary and conclusions.  If I’m successful, the report will show a progression from the event itself (or shortly before the event) on through to the eyewitness accounts (if any), on to responsibilities of all the parties, and finally to my conclusion discussing what I think happened and why.

All written at the eighth grade reading level.

Don’t laugh:  The Wall Street Journal is said to be written at the eighth grade level, and the great Ernest Hemingway generally wrote at the fifth grade reading level.

A low reading level score (lower is better) means that most everyone can understand it—my client, members of the jury and, of course, me.   There is nothing worse for an expert to be handed his or her own report while on the witness stand—and then being asked to translate it into Plain English.

Better it’s already in Plain English.