News 2018: Spencer Presents First Ever Empirical Study of Whether More Readable Briefs Correlate with Success in the Trial Courts

Associate Dean Spencer presented his study finding that brief readability was significantly correlated with summary judgment success, and that the relationship was stronger in federal courts than in state courts

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Shaun Spencer presented his empirical study of legal writing at the national conference of the Legal Writing Institute in July 2018. His study, with co-author Adam Feldman, showed a correlation between brief readability and summary judgment success.

After controlling for multiple factors internal and extraneous to the briefs, the study found that brief readability was significantly correlated to summary judgment success, and that the relationship was stronger in federal courts than in state courts.

Spencer and Feldman’s study pioneered a new approach to measuring brief readability. Whereas prior studies used a single readability measure, Spencer and Feldman used factor analysis to develop an index of many different readability measures, thereby increasing the reliability of their readability measure.

In addition, whereas prior readability studies measured each brief in isolation, Spencer and Feldman also assigned each brief in their sample a readability score in relation to the readability of the opposing brief on the same motion. This relative readability score accounts for the fact that judges read briefs in opposition to one another.

Finally, Spencer and Feldman developed control variables accounting for attorney experience, law firm size, and the attorney’s status as a repeat player before the motion judge. While many control variables have already been coded for similar studies in the Supreme Court, no one had attempted such coding at the trial court level.

The study appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Legal Writing Institute.

For a link to Associate Dean Spencer’s study, see: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2807045