In an interesting twist recently, a California federal judge sharply criticized the shareholders of X, formerly known as Twitter, for their ill-prepared legal writing in their proposed stock-drop class action over alleged cybersecurity misrepresentations. Law360 reports this significant development.
Whilst critical of the poorly written legal document, the judge, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi, expressed he will permit some claims to be resubmitted, under the condition that the shareholders champion “common sense” and adhere to a “simple formula” in rewriting their amended complaint.
Lead plaintiff William Baker and his legal team at the Rosen Law Firm were subjected to the judge’s significant ire, who found their complaint unnecessarily convoluted and complicated. As per Judge Scarsi, the complaint took an inordinate amount of time to comprehend, pushing him to navigate back and forth through a voluminous amount of paragraphs. This laborious exercise was to establish connections between statements from Twitter’s ex-executives on the social media platform’s cybersecurity protocols and evidence supposedly indicating those claims were false.
Legal writing, rather than being an opportunity to flex lexical prowess, should be encapsulating, compact, and effective. It is intriguing how this task, that should have mirrored Twitter’s previous restrictive character limits, ended up confusing and prolonged. The complaint should have adopted the Men in Black Noisey Cricket rule – sleek, compact, yet packs a punch.
This situation sheds light on an unfortunate tendency of legal brief creation that often ignores the fundamental principle of effective and concise communication. There’s an inherent responsibility to facilitate a smooth reading process for the judge by adequately organizing pivotal elements and presenting arguments in an efficient and logical order. Legal professionals must strive to better structure their documents, eschewing unnecessary florishes for clarity and brevity.
For lovers of legal briefs, let this serve as a reminder that less can indeed be more. It’s pertinent that lawyers calling out alleged fallacies by high-profile executives, for instance, present the falsifying elements alongside the proclaimed misinformation. Essentially, help your case; not hinder it.
Read the full text of Judge Scarsi’s stern message to the X investors in “Judge Warns X Investors Not To Repeat Rambling Filing.”