Courier`s original purpose had even less to do with reading storage than with Times New Roman. Instead, it should facilitate the editing of typed documents on typewriters. With the Courier font, the letters are all the same size – typographically expressed as “non-proportional”. For example, because an “i” occupies the same space as a “w”, a typewriter could use a white key of the same size for each letter. [6] But Adobe Acrobat – which most people use to read PDFs – draws text on the screen with its own technology that eliminates the advantage of on-screen readability of these system fonts. In addition, any PDF could also be printed. Therefore, it is usually better to use print-optimized fonts for PDFs. If you are limited to system fonts, check out this diagram and choose wisely. For printing, list A is the best.

For on-screen view, such as presentations and websites, lists A and B are correct. They are also suitable for sharing design documents. Paying attention to what the words look like will help you stand out from your legal writing and better convince your reader. The vibe of most sans-serif fonts is formal and traditional. (Not to be confused with professional.) These are cool fonts in the sense that they are reserved and reserved, and in some cases can even be perceived as remote. They seem like a natural addition to law firms, and in some cases they are – when formality and tradition are part of the firm`s brand. DISCLAIMERThis card is only available as a means of harm reduction. In the long run, a system write diet can be harmful to health. My official advice remains the same: professional writers should use professional fonts. On the following pages, I suggest professional alternatives to the most common system fonts. (Editor`s note: Unfortunately, we don`t have any Century family fonts installed on this WordPress theme.

The font you like right now is Lato.) The first part discusses current policing standards for lawyers in North Carolina and why the policies preferred by these standards are not optimal for legal drafting. A web font, on the other hand, is specially designed for online use. Some web fonts exist only as such; They have been designed exclusively for use on the Internet. Others are modified versions of desktop fonts. In recent years, the North Carolina Supreme Court and the North Carolina Court of Appeals have stopped publishing their opinions in Courier New and instead began publishing their opinions in Century Schoolbook. Most recently, on December 20, 2016, the North Carolina Supreme Court amended North Carolina`s rules of appeal procedure to explicitly support Century Schoolbook as one of the preferred fonts for appeal briefs. [16] While fonts may not be at the top of the list of important things to discuss, we hope this article is thought-provoking. Alternatively, you can turn to other lawyers. After the virginia change, the ABA Journal asked its readers to review their favorite legal policies. There have been many fans of Century Schoolbook (after all, what lawyer doesn`t want to feel like a Supreme Court justice when typing?), as well as users of Cambria, Garamond and Times New Roman. The set of characters for printing can be easily manipulated in countless ways. Changing the spacing between individual letters – even in different quantities in the same word – is quick and easy with layout software like InDesign.

The same flexibility is not available when programming websites. Even if you tried, the CSS required to control the page would be cumbersome and a burden on page speed. This would likely hamper your SEO efforts and push your pages down in search results. Therefore, web fonts must have built-in readability features such as letter spacing. For the same reason, Century family fonts, especially Century Schoolbook, are used in situations where readability and retention are most important. As a non-exclusive example, pharmaceutical researchers recommend Century Schoolbook for prescription drug labels – a place where suboptimal font choices could have serious consequences. [14] This is Courier New, another font that many North Carolina lawyers use. Courier was developed by IBM in the 1950s, but became the standard typewriter font in the 1960s. [5] J.M. Durnovich is a litigator in the Charlotte office of Poyner Spruill LLP. His favorite font is Century Schoolbook.

Read more about font licensing and the legal use of fonts I thought it was now common knowledge that lawyers should avoid using Times New Roman as a font for their legal documents. But I had a conversation with an experienced lawyer about the choice of police in appeal briefs, and this experienced lawyer tried to tell me that the police didn`t matter. “Just leave it to Times New Roman,” the experienced lawyer said. “That`s what judges are used to; That is what they expect. There is no reason to shake it. And that may be true. Perhaps after seeing thousands of court cases, judges simply “get used to” these pleadings and “expect” these pleadings to look a certain amount. Since the lawyers were not too technologically advanced, they used the standard font of the standard word processor for all their documents. As a result, most legal documents (including letters and memos) are stuck in the footsteps of Times New Roman. But professional policies are not always an option. Some projects require system fonts, which are the fonts already installed on your computer. In printed materials, they pose three problems.

Sans-serif (literally “sans serif”) fonts are round and smooth. For some time, there has been a general opinion that sans-serif fonts are easier to read online (they are small in size), and sans-serif fonts have always been recommended for body copying. However, the resolution of the monitor has improved so much that sans-serif and sans-serif fonts can easily be used in the body of the website, as long as the text is not too small. You can even get away with Times New Roman if you`re using an older version of Word and you`re not ready to change the default font. (Word has changed its default font to Calibri in recent versions, a font that is conspicuously absent from Virginia`s list.) Among its attractive features is the Century Schoolbook, which is “very readable and yet has a touch of authority with letters that take up more space than Times New Roman.” [11] It was even called the “crème de la crème of legal writings.” [12] As professional writers, lawyers should rely on professional policies. They are the fastest and easiest way to improve your typography. .