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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I don't know. Obviously experience varies, but I have found at my agency that many, many lawyers do not seem to care about typos, bluebooking, etc even in briefs that are submitted to court. Ditto for opposing counsel and for the lawyers who practice before us. I care intensely, which I assume is my clerkship/biglaw training; I would've gotten reamed out for the mistakes that routinely are submitted in my colleagues' briefs. My supervisor also cares and my colleagues label him a micromanaging freak because of it. [/quote]

Interesting, this is my experience too (including the resentment of people who care).  Many are very careful, meticulous lawyers in other respects but it just doesn't carry through to their writing.  I see a correlation between people who care and people who attended "top" schools; not sure if there is a biglaw correlation as there are few of us with that background.[/quote]

For me, it has to do with resources.  As a government attorney, I've frequently worked in offices that are understaffed. Some attorneys want to spend all their time writing a few briefs. The case log gets jammed up, and the rest of the office picks up the work. I've said to a few of my subordinates that they don't need to be turning out law review quality work. They need to write briefs that advocate our position. A typo isn't going to change the outcome of a case.  Some attorneys need to check their egos and learn to turn out more work, even if the work product isn't perfect. [/quote]

21:24 here. Of course I understand there is a resource issue; we don't have paralegals to check the document 15 times like I did at the firm. In my office, however, we all do the same work. In fact my workload is about 30% heavier than most of my colleagues because I work very fast and request more work on a frequent basis. Again, the ingrained Biglaw mentality, I guess -- churn it out, work as fast as you can in the hours you have, etc. I am not saying I don't have typos sometimes -- of course I do. Everyone does. But the thing is, I care about them. My colleagues don't. It's not primarily a resource issue where I am, or else it would impact me the way it does others. It's an attitude issue. It is probably the only thing that really annoys me in government practice, which I otherwise love. And, of course, it may well be that my colleagues' briefs are substantively far better than mine. Though having reviewed a bunch -- we have a peer review system -- I would say we are all pretty consistent.[/quote]

PP again ... I'm with you.  In the agency I worked in for 26 yrs., typos in briefs and official documents were not accepted and were frowned upon and reflected poorly on the drafter/signer of the document.

"Good enough for government work" is a bullshit stereotype IMO.  Your professional standards should not vaporize.  You put your reputation on the line with each filing or document, there's no excuse IMO to let sloppy work go out.

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