Writing
style
is
clearly
important
to
the
Supreme
Court
justices.
Not
only
are
the
justices
cognizant
of
the
writing
styles
in
briefs,
but
they
are
also
attuned
to
the
writing
styles
of
other
judges
and
justices.
Justices
past
and
present
discussed
this
and
other
matters
in
interviews
with
legal
writing
specialist
Bryan
Garner
for
the
Scribes
Journal
over
a
decade
ago.
Some
of
the
key
takeaways
from
the
justices
were:
Roberts
“…Henry
Friendly
was
a
brilliant
writer
and
had
a
way
of
exposition
that
just
revealed
the
thought
and
decision
process.
If
you
ever
pick
up
one
of
his
opinions,
he
walks
you
exactly
through
how
he
reached
the
result.
He
says
you
begin
with
this,
whether
it’s
the
language,
and
it
raises
this
concern,
and
you
pick
up
this
case,
and
he
walks
you
through,
and
it’s
very
revealing
and
very
clear.
Justice
Rehnquist,
for
whom
I
clerked
—
to
some
extent
a
very
different
writing
style,
but
a
crisper
diction
to
his
language,
if
that
makes
sense,
and
the
written
word,
and
yet
the
same
clarity
—
also
taught
me
a
great
deal
about
writing.”
“As
a
lawyer,
you
need
to
know
your
audience,
and
if
you
know
there’s
a
word
or
a
phrase
or
style
of
grammar
that’s
going
to
annoy
your
reader,
you
want
to
make
sure
you
don’t
put
it
in.”
Scalia
“Maybe
that’s
a
peculiar
part
of
my
own
style,
but
I
don’t
think
you’ll
often
find
sentences
of
mine
that
begin
with
However…”
Kennedy
“The
purpose
for
the
opinion
is
to
convince,
ultimately.
The
only
authority
our
Court
has
is
the
respect
that’s
accorded
its
judgments,
and
that
respect
is
based
on
what
we
write.
So
writing
is
of
immense
importance.”
“As
a
consumer
of
what
judges
write:
in
all
my
years
as
an
advocate
for
the
ACLU,
when
I
constantly
read
judicial
decisions
relevant
to
the
case
I
was
briefing;
as
a
law
teacher
writing
an
article
that
requires
reading
a
massive
decision.
I
try
to
write
an
opinion
so
it
will
be
what
I
would
have
liked
an
opinion
to
be
when
I
was
a
law
teacher
or
an
advocate.”
Ginsburg
Garner:
“Have
there
been
any
writers
outside
law
who’ve
been
major
influences
on
your
style
apart
from
your
own
teachers,
Cushman
and
Nabokov?”
RBG:
“I
can’t
say
that
there’s
a
direct
relationship
between
Jane
Austen’s
novels
and
my
writing.
Or
Tolstoy’s.”
Sophisticated
writing
software
with
AI
components
can
now
tell
you
how
to
write
like
particular
judges
by
engineering
writing
that
mirrors
stylistic
features
of
the
judges’
writings.
This
raises
a
few
interesting
questions.
First,
what
do
we
mean
by
writing
style?
Style
is
a
very
general
concept
that
encompasses
many
dimensions.
Measuring
style
is
somewhat
subjective
and
somewhat
objective.
There
are
features
of
style
which
most
writers
would
agree
on,
whether
they
be
word
choice,
sentence
length,
word
relationships,
etc.
Which
ones
are
more
and
less
important,
and
how
we
measure
them
is
somewhat
left
to
the
eye
of
the
beholder.
If
justices
think
they
write
well
(I
assume
most
do),
and
they
want
well
written
submissions
from
attorneys,
then
attorneys
might
gain
something
by
writing
in
the
style
of
the
justices.
A
roadblock
to
this
approach
though
is
that
there
are
nine
justices,
each
with
their
unique
style.
Usually
around
one-third
of
the
Court’s
opinions
are
unanimous
and
even
these
decisions
often
have
separate
concurring
opinions.
At
the
end
of
the
day,
it
is
tricky
to
pick
the
justice
that
will
likely
author
the
majority
opinion
of
any
given
case,
especially
at
the
point
of
drafting
the
brief
on
the
merits.
Still
some
attorneys
mimic
the
style
of
the
Court’s
majority
authors
better
than
others…
Methods:
I
have
seven
different
features
of
style
that
I
describe
below.
I
used
Python
to
measure
each
of
these
dimensions
with
the
briefs
for
the
arguing
attorneys
for
the
merits
parties
(not
amici)
for
each
case
taken
on
cert
during
the
2023/2024
Supreme
Court
Term.
I
then
looked
at
how
well
these
briefs
mirrored
the
majority
opinions
in
these
cases
along
the
same
dimensions.
After
calculating
these
brief/opinion
comparisons
across
the
seven
dimensions
I
generated
an
Index
(Style)
Score
for
each
brief
with
lower
index
numbers
relating
to
briefs
that
were
stylistically
more
proximate
to
the
majority
opinions
in
these
cases.
The
Scores
ranged
from
8.4
to
220
with
a
mean
of
61.
Each
of
the
measures
discussed
below
was
weighted
equally
in
deriving
the
Index.
Here
are
the
measures:
Average
Sentence
Length
The
average
sentence
length
is
a
key
measure
for
assessing
the
complexity
and
readability
of
a
text.
It
captures
the
typical
number
of
words
used
in
a
sentence,
giving
insight
into
the
density
of
information
and
potential
difficulty
level
of
the
language.
To
measure
average
sentence
length,
all
the
sentences
in
a
text
are
first
identified,
and
the
number
of
words
in
each
sentence
is
counted.
The
total
word
count
of
all
sentences
is
then
divided
by
the
number
of
sentences,
yielding
the
average
sentence
length.
Type-Token
Ratio
(TTR)
Type-Token
Ratio
(TTR)
is
a
measure
of
lexical
diversity,
capturing
the
proportion
of
unique
words
(types)
to
total
words
(tokens)
in
a
text.
A
high
TTR
indicates
greater
lexical
variety,
suggesting
that
the
author
uses
a
wide
range
of
vocabulary,
which
can
be
associated
with
an
advanced
or
nuanced
writing
style.
To
measure
TTR,
all
unique
alphabetic
words
are
counted
and
divided
by
the
total
word
count
in
the
document.
Trigram
Counts
Trigram
counts
measure
the
frequency
of
consecutive
three
word
pairs
in
the
text.
These
provide
a
deeper
look
at
word
pairings,
revealing
common
phrases
or
stylistic
patterns
that
contribute
to
the
flow
and
coherence
of
the
writing.
To
measure
these
counts,
the
text
is
divided
into
overlapping
word
trios,
and
each
trio
is
recorded.
The
frequency
of
each
unique
trigram
is
then
counted.
Average
Clause
Length
Average
clause
length
reveals
the
complexity
of
sentence
structures
within
the
text.
Longer
clauses
often
reflect
more
sophisticated
sentence
construction,
suggesting
a
higher
density
of
information
or
ideas,
while
shorter
clauses
tend
toward
clarity
and
simplicity
Clauses
are
defined
by
punctuation
markers,
such
as
commas
or
semicolons,
which
often
separate
individual
clauses
within
sentences.
By
calculating
the
number
of
words
in
each
clause
and
averaging
these
counts,
this
metric
provides
an
average
clause
length.
Subordination
Ratio
The
subordination
ratio
indicates
the
frequency
of
subordinate
clauses
relative
to
total
clauses,
which
is
a
marker
of
syntactic
sophistication.
Higher
ratios
reflect
more
complex
sentence
structures
with
embedded
subordinate
clauses,
a
common
feature
in
academic,
legal,
and
formal
writing.
Subordination
is
measured
by
identifying
subordinating
conjunctions
(for
example
“although,”
“because”)
within
the
text.
Each
conjunction
signals
a
subordinate
clause,
which
is
then
tallied.
The
ratio
is
obtained
by
dividing
the
count
of
subordinate
clauses
by
the
total
clause
count.
Modal
Verb
Ratio
Modal
verb
ratio
examines
the
presence
of
modal
verbs,
which
convey
degrees
of
possibility,
necessity,
or
intention
(for
example
“might,”
“must,”
“could”).
A
high
frequency
of
modal
verbs
can
imply
cautious
or
hypothetical
language,
while
a
low
frequency
may
suggest
definitive
statements.
Modal
verbs
are
counted
by
matching
each
word
in
the
text
against
a
predefined
list
of
modal
verbs.
Each
occurrence
is
recorded,
and
the
sum
is
divided
by
the
total
word
count
to
determine
the
modal
verb
ratio.
Nominalization
Rate
Nominalization
rate
assesses
the
use
of
nouns
derived
from
verbs
or
adjectives
(for
example
“discussion”
from
“discuss”).
High
nominalization
rates
can
create
a
dense,
formal
style,
as
nominalizations
make
language
more
abstract
and
informationally
packed.
This
rate
is
calculated
by
counting
nouns
derived
from
verbs
or
adjectives,
excluding
pronouns.
The
total
count
of
these
nominalizations
is
divided
by
the
word
count
to
find
the
nominalization
rate.
Findings:
The
distributions
for
each
of
the
measures
aside
from
trigram
ratios
(which
are
more
difficult
to
show
in
distribution
form
due
to
the
complexity
of
matching
the
trigrams
in
the
brief
with
the
trigrams
in
the
opinion)
are
given
below
with
the
mean
value
along
each
dotted
line:
Which
justices
were
most
accurately
mirrored?
Here
is
the
graph
of
average
Index
Score
by
justices
with
the
lower
scores
equating
with
more
closely
mirrored
opinions:
Here
we
see
that
Alito’s
style
was
mirrored
with
more
accuracy
than
the
rest
of
the
justices
while
Sotomayor’s
style
was
mirrored
least
effectively.
The
next
graph
shows
the
top
15
instances
of
lowest
Index
Score
(most
closely
mirrored)
opinions
by
attorney
for
the
past
term:
Paul
Clement
is
the
only
attorney
in
the
top
15
lowest
scores
more
than
once.
Several
of
the
attorneys
are
currently
in
the
Office
of
the
Solicitor
General
(OSG)
including
the
lowest
scoring
attorney,
Curtis
Gannon,
for
the
brief
in
Department
of
State
v.
Muñoz.
The
ways
these
attorneys
achieved
these
scores
though
are
quite
different
based
on
these
dimensions
as
the
graphs
below
show.
Concluding
Thoughts
If
one
were
to
come
up
with
a
hypothesis
of
what
to
expect
before
generating
these
measures,
OSG
attorneys
scoring
low
(more
closely
matching)
would
be
a
strong
initial
hypothesis
because
of
their
regular
interactions
with
the
justices
in
cases
argued
each
term.
Paul
Clement
and
Noel
Francisco,
who
is
also
on
the
list
of
the
lowest
15
scorings
briefs,
are
both
former
SGs,
also
indicating
the
importance
of
the
OSG
experience
in
writing
briefs
that
mirror
the
justices’
styles.
Still,
there
is
a
lot
of
randomness
and
luck
in
achieving
a
low
Index
Score.
If
you
write
more
like
one
justice,
you
may
write
less
like
another.
These
things
have
to
match
up
in
order
to
have
a
brief
that
closely
mirrors
the
style
of
the
majority
opinion.
With
that
said,
some
attorneys
were
more
adept
at
achieving
these
scores
than
others,
and
the
clusters,
especially
related
to
the
OSG
are
telling.
Adam
Feldman
runs
the
litigation
consulting
company
Optimized
Legal
Solutions
LLC.
For
more
information
write
Adam
at [email protected]. Find
him
on
Twitter: @AdamSFeldman.