Solicitors' secretaries: is a poor standard of written English the norm?

I'm dealing a lot with a solicitor these days. The solicitor has a solid reputation. However, I need to keep proofreading the English in letters which his secretary asks me to clear. It's not the usual corrections of fact but rather of poor spelling, etc and I'm sort of embarrassed doing it. Nonetheless, as things are going out in my name I don't want to appear as some sort of illiterate. I therefore fly in there with corrections to proper/common nouns, synthetic structures, misplaced apostrophes, etc.

I'm actually shocked that any solicitor could employ a secretary who does not have a superb grasp of written English. I would expect that accurate written English would be very important in law.

Would this sort of sloppy English from one solicitor's practice to another's be viewed negatively by the other side of by a judge? Or is it the norm?

downtheroad

Solicitors English is horrible to read, using words that went out with Henry VIII. Herewith forthwith etc.

Also many people have dumbed down nowadays as technology does the spelling and grammar for them.

mickdw

A local one here employs polish secretary to open up business from that nationality.

No excuse for badly written documents going out though.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058305602/solicitors-secretaries-is-a-poor-standard-of-written-english-the-norm

Would this sort of sloppy English from one solicitor's practice to another's be viewed negatively by the other side of by a judge? Or is it the norm?

Seriously? 🤨

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120868439#Comment_120868439

Yes, what's that with the weird English coming from solicitors in 2023? - 'Should it please the Honourable Court', and all the rest. And as for the "learned Judge". Some of those judges are far from learned and, moreover, I don't call my plumber the 'learned plumber'. Indeed, no other tradesperson or professional gets these peacock terms.

It would be nice if the public courts of this Republic could be reclaimed from the esoteric, redundant terminology of 17th-century England and replaced with a modern lexicon.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120868539#Comment_120868539

I call upon thee to remediate my client forthwith by making payment post haste to the bank account attached herewith.

They love an auld cheque too do lawyers. Firmly stuck in the past.

Goons.

endofrainbow

I blame texting for the lack of grammar and spelling

(if u no wot i mean).

Claw Hammer

I blame bad teaching in the schools. There was a time when spelling and grammar were taught in primary schools. Now, they are not even taught in secondary schools.

A further point on this is that many solicitors find it hard to get secretaries. There is near full employment and many city centre solicitors find that the bus journey is too far in from the suburbs for secretaries when there are jobs available nearer home. With rents at the level they are at, secretaries cannot afford to live in rental accommodation. Only big firms charging big fees can afford to pay secretaries enough to attract good ones.

Peregrinus

Seems to me that this raises questions not only about the English language competence of the secretary, but also of the solicitor. Even if the solicitor dictates the stuff and the secretary types it, the solicitor should read it before it goes out, and it shouldn't go out until the solicitor is happy with it. Which means the solicitor is happy with all the misspellings, punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes that the OP is correcting.

RetroEncabulator

The worst I ever encountered was a cut and paste job where a document had been drafted so sloppily that someone was proposing to enter an agreement with themselves!!

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120873219#Comment_120873219

I once got a lease from a landlord where they would pay me €900 per month in exchange for them occupying the property!

newtolaw

I am a legal secretary and I would like to say that is not the norm! I do dictation for one particular solicitor who likes "didn't, haven't, wouldn't" and also "etc." at the end of a sentence. I correct it as I type and send it back to him for approval and it is never changed. If the secretary is new perhaps they would not want to go against what is being specifically said. Spelling mistakes however are pure laziness and embarrassing.

There is one High Court Judge that writes judgments using "I amn't" e.g. "because even if I were minded to do so (which I amn’t)" and that to me is very poor grammar from a Judge. If I was their judicial assistant (or whoever types their judgments) I would be changing that to "which I am not".

I feel slightly better as I read a missive from the other side's solicitor/secretary and he/she/it/they had atrocious spelling and zero understanding of where an apostrophe correctly goes. These are primary school English lessons!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058305602/solicitors-secretaries-is-a-poor-standard-of-written-english-the-norm

Just saying OP your own post is written a bit sloppily. It’s very ironic therefore that you’re criticising someone else’s writing skills.

In any case if you feel the job is below par explain to your solicitor and let them deal with it.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120891244#Comment_120891244

Only the 6 grammatical mistakes there.

spaceHopper

Got a lot of emails from the solicitor handling my father's estate. She's a friend of my sister who is also a solicitor. They are terrible communicators every email had the same subject and a PDF letter attached, slows down reading it and you can't search by subject. Because she was friend of my sister I let it slide but it was just me, I'd have sent the back saying there must be a subject to each email and no unnecessary attachment. They should also write in simple common English.

FYI I'm dyslexic so typos and spelling mistakes are common for me. I find that using word read aloud brillant for catching mistakes.

OP If I was you I'd stop after the 3rd correction and say could they use a headset and read aloud before sending back to you for review.