# Typography For Lawyers > Professional typography rules for legal and professional documents, distilled from Matthew Butterick's "Typography for Lawyers." Use this whenever you draft, format, review, or advise on the appearance of a brief, motion, memo, contract, pleading, caption page, court filing, letterhead, business card, résumé, or any document a lawyer produces — and whenever someone asks which font, point size, line spacing, margins, or line length to use, how to comply with a court's typography rules, how to fix "typewriter habits" (straight quotes, two spaces after a period, underlining, all-caps, faux dashes), how to combine or pair fonts, or how to make a proper PDF. Trigger it for questions like "what font should this brief use", "format this contract", "is my motion's formatting professional", "alternatives to Times New Roman / Arial", or "make this document look like it was professionally typeset" — even when the word "typography" is never said. - Skill: `deligoez/typography-for-lawyers` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 8 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add deligoez/typography-for-lawyers` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/deligoez/typography-for-lawyers/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Design & Media - Author: deligoez (https://skillmd.com/u/deligoez) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/deligoez/typography-for-lawyers --- # Typography for Lawyers A working reference distilled from Matthew Butterick's *Typography for Lawyers* (). It turns a document from typewriter output into professional typesetting. Use it to advise on, review, or apply typography to any legal or professional document. ## The core idea **"Typography is the visual component of the written word"** — and it exists **for the reader, not the writer.** Good typography makes text *more effective*: it conserves the reader's attention (a lawyer's scarcest resource) so more of it lands on the argument. It is not more important than good writing, but it makes good writing better — and bad typography quietly undercuts it. There's no separate "legal typography"; legal documents are held to the same standard as any professional publishing, because **lawyers are, functionally, publishers.** When a judgment call isn't covered below, favor *more* consistency with professional typography, not less. (The full reasoning, including the two "Laws of Typography," the em, and how far to push formatting in court, is in `references/foundations.md`.) ## Start here: the highest-impact fixes If you change nothing else, change these — they do the most work, in rough priority order. Most are **page layout**, because layout outranks font choice. 1. **Fix the line length.** Aim for **45–90 characters per line** (~2–3 alphabets). Default 1″ margins give ~6.5″ lines that are too long. At 12 pt use **1.5″–2.0″** side margins. Control line length with margins, not indents. 2. **Fix line spacing.** Use **120–145% of point size**, set with Word's **"Exactly"** option (a fixed point value) — not the "Single/1.5/Double" presets, which miss the range. If a court requires "double," that means exactly 2× the point size, *not* Word's "Double" preset (~15% too loose). 3. **Body text 10–12 pt** (11 pt is often ideal); experiment in **half-point** steps if unrestricted. 12 pt is not magic — it's a typewriter habit. 4. **One space between sentences**, never two. **Curly quotes**, never straight. Real **en/em dashes**, never `--`. These are the most visible tells of amateur work. 5. **Never underline** for emphasis (a typewriter relic) — use *italic* or **bold** (never both, always sparingly). Don't set paragraphs in ALL CAPS; it reads *slower*, so readers skip exactly what you meant to stress. 6. **Separate paragraphs one way, not two** — a first-line indent (1×–4× the point size) *or* space between paragraphs (4–10 pt), never both. 7. **Turn on kerning** (off by default; enable for 8 pt and up) and **letterspace caps/small-caps** by 5–12% (never lowercase). 8. **Upgrade the font.** Replace Times New Roman / Arial with a professional face; if you can't install one, at least move off the C- and F-list system fonts. See the font guidance below. ## Reviewing or formatting a document — workflow 1. **Identify the document type and its constraints.** A court filing has rules (point-size minimum, margins, line spacing, sometimes a required font); a contract, memo, letterhead, or résumé does not. Read any governing court rule *carefully* — it usually leaves far more discretion than lawyers assume, and it sets minimums/maximums ("at least", "no more than"), not a fixed look. See `references/practical-howtos.md` → *How to interpret court rules*. 2. **Design the body text first** — font, point size, line spacing, line length. It's the bulk of the page and determines most of the appearance. 3. **Apply the character-level fixes** — quotes, spaces, dashes, symbols (§/¶ + nonbreaking space), ellipses. See `references/type-composition.md`. 4. **Handle emphasis and headings** — bold/italic sparingly, ≤3 heading levels, space above/below as the main emphasis, small caps for cross-references. See `references/text-formatting.md`. 5. **Refine layout** — margins, paragraph separation, lists, tables, rules, footnotes, page-break controls, line numbers. See `references/page-layout.md`. 6. **Apply the type-specific recipe** for that document. See `references/sample-documents.md`. 7. **Deliver as a PDF** (convert directly, never scan) so your fonts and layout survive. See `references/practical-howtos.md` → *How to make a PDF*. ## Font choice — the quick answer - **Body text: use a serif** — the traditional and still-best choice for body text. - **The clichés to replace:** Times New Roman (no court actually requires it; it survives by habit) and Arial. Professional replacements cost under $200 and instantly upgrade every document. Two genuinely good **free** fonts: **Charter** and **Cooper Hewitt**. - **Butterick's own families** (built for this): **Equity** (serif, made for lawyers), Valkyrie, Century Supra, Heliotrope (body serifs); **Concourse** (sans); Triplicate (a nice monospace); Hermes Maia and **Advocate** (display/headline). - **Combining fonts (the pairing question):** most documents want **one** font; a second is the most you usually need; almost none tolerate a third. Serif+sans is *not* required — any two *identifiably different* fonts work. The reliable trick: **pick two fonts by the same designer.** Butterick's one named pairing is **Equity (body) + Concourse (headings/labels)**. Give each font a fixed role; never switch fonts mid-paragraph. - Full alternatives table for every overused system font, the A/B/C/F system-font tiers, licensing, and formats are in `references/fonts.md`. ## Reference map Load the file that matches the task; each is self-contained. | File | Use it for | |---|---| | `references/foundations.md` | The *why* — principles, the two Laws, the em, screen vs. print, judgment calls, how far to push it in court | | `references/type-composition.md` | Character-level marks: curly quotes, one space, dashes/hyphens, § ¶ ™ ® © and math, ellipses, accents, foot/inch marks, white-space characters (nonbreaking space, tabs, line/page breaks), ligatures — with Windows/Mac keyboard shortcuts | | `references/text-formatting.md` | Emphasis (no underlining; bold *or* italic), all-caps & small caps, point size, headings & tiered numbering, letterspacing & kerning, color, figures/ordinals/OpenType, fonts to avoid, **mixing fonts**, web/email addresses | | `references/page-layout.md` | The high-impact numbers: margins, line spacing, line length, indents, paragraph spacing, block quotes, lists, tables, rules/borders, widow/orphan & keep-together controls, columns, footnotes, line numbers, Bates numbering, styles, the nine maxims | | `references/fonts.md` | Professional vs. system fonts, Butterick's families, **font combinations/pairings**, alternatives to Arial/Times/Palatino/etc., A–F tiers, buying & licensing, font copyright | | `references/sample-documents.md` | Concrete recipes: caption pages, motions, research memos, letterhead, business cards, résumés, grids of numbers, presentations, contracts, court opinions | | `references/practical-howtos.md` | The 22 typewriter habits to drop, interpreting court rules, making a correct PDF, embedding fonts in Word, printers & paper, and a common-accented-character input table | ## A few rules worth stating up front - **Design for the real reader** — busy, skeptical, looking for a reason to stop reading — not the patient, fascinated reader you imagine. - **Use the smallest visible increment.** Headings go 12 → 12.5/13 pt, not 14–15. Typography lives in fine differences; the gap between "not enough" and "too much" is small. - **Test visually.** Print options side by side rather than deciding in the abstract. - **Embrace white space.** "Work outward from the text, not inward from the page edges. If the text looks good, the white space will take care of itself." - **Judges get the last word** on how a filing is formatted. Comply in good faith; never try to "correct" a judge's reading of the rules in a high-stakes matter. --- *This skill distills the freely available web edition of Matthew Butterick's* Typography for Lawyers *(). All credit for the underlying rules and examples belongs to Butterick; buy the book to support the work. The typefaces named as "Butterick's own" are his commercial MB Type fonts.*