It is important to follow our style guidelines for two main reasons:
- We have put effort and money into achieving a smart and professional presentation, and individual deviations from this could destroy the effect;
- For documents to work properly with Equinox they must have the correct layout.
We have standardised on the Open Sans font, and use 11pt for our letters. There may, however, be instances where standard fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman will have to be used for compatibility with outside systems, for example in patent specifications, where we currently use Arial 12pt as standard.
For letters, we use left justification, in an effort to make our letters easier to read, Open Sans being a sans-serif font. It is generally recognised that serif fonts are easier to read, and while full justification looks nicer, left-justification can help people to follow the text more easily. Since we do our best to explain things to our clients in clear understandable English (on which see more below), we need to encourage them actually to read what we have written, or at least not to put them off.
The letter templates available through Equinox have been designed to conform with the Company style, and therefore should not be altered. However, there may be times when a letter does not quite fit on to a single page, but is not enough for two pages. You can then use a slightly smaller font size (try 10.5 – type the value in the font size box) to make it fit.
When creating a new template, do not start from scratch, but instead base the new one on an existing template (see Office Manual 2.6.6 for how to do it), to ensure that the style is retained.
Style Guide for Letters
Writing letters to clients involves a very different style from writing academic essays or technical reports, or even personal letters to friends (does anyone still write these?). The object is to communicate complex legal and technical issues to the client. The end result must be that the client understands what we need from him or her, or what his or her options are. This means sometimes foregoing elegance for simplicity.
Things to avoid:
- Long sentences with multiple sub-clauses. However correct and elegant they might be, some clients will find them difficult to follow.
- Long paragraphs. Some clients will find a large block of text intimidating and so might not read all of it.
- Expressions such as “so to speak”, “sort of” and the like. These generally indicate that you have not yet found the right way to get ideas across.
- Misuse of question marks. Statements like “I hope you are well” are just that, statements, not questions. A question is “Are you well?”. The converse needs to be watched as well. If you say: “May I take this opportunity to remind you….”, that is a question and needs a question mark. You can avoid this by saying: “I take this opportunity to remind you…”, since you have already done so, and do not need an answer.
- Misuse of commas. A comma indicates a pause when the sentence is read. Read what you have written back to yourself, deliberately pausing at each comma, but otherwise not pausing at all. If it sounds silly, then you have put the commas in the wrong place. Equally, if you run out of breath you might need to add some.
- Misplacing of I and We. If you are writing as you, rather than impersonally as the firm (a Dear Mr Smith or Dear John type of letter, rather than Dear Sirs), do be consistent about the use of We and I. Generally, you will use “I” when referring to what you are doing, such as referring to their earlier letter, or your telephone conversation, and sending them something, but “we” when referring to aspects of the firm’s policy or when giving the advice of the firm. So, for example, “we will ask for a payment on account” and “in our view the patent is invalid” are appropriate, rather than “I” and “my”, because that is what the client is paying for: the advice of the firm, rather than of one individual in it. It follows that any advice you do give reflects what we as a firm would advise; you will need to confer on that with others if you are not completely sure.
Things to use:
- Short and to-the-point sentences. Don’t be afraid to use a full stop where you might get tempted to put a comma. Ask yourself whether the part of the sentence you were going to put after the comma is really connected to the first part of the sentence. If it is not, start a new sentence.
- Short paragraphs. However, do try to keep connected ideas in the same paragraph. Don’t be tempted to make every sentence its own paragraph – that just looks messy. Bullet points can be used to deliver lists of things the client needs to know.
Last Updated on 2 January 2025 by Keith