Lawyers have different views about and approaches to drafting orders. Many lawyers have *strong* views about such matters. Personally, I am a fan (within reason) of tracking. It is precisely the tool for the job. Not everyone agrees, though. Whilst a reluctance by a few to get on top of a widely used and actually very simple tool of the trade is a frustration for those of us make good use of track changing regularly, I think that our different ways of working can be easily overcome. What really causes friction is poor communication by overburdened lawyers working under time pressure, doing a job that isn’t (or didn’t used to be) their job in the first place at the end of a long day.

For a bunch of communicators, dispute resolvers and word wranglers, I’m pretty sure we can do better (I include myself in that). We have ALL got grumpy about orders. Anyone who says otherwise is being economic with the actualité.

However, being grumpy about it does makes a drudging task more unpleasant. And hoping that the judges will one day realise drafting by committee is both inefficient and a massive pain and thus take back responsibility for orders for the greater good, is not going to make this problem go away.

So. Here is my suggestion for our rules of engagement when drafting those bleeping orders.

DRAFTER

1 When you send out your draft, say how you want amendments, particularly if you have strong feelings about you want drafts

• sequentially
• tracked (my preference)
• in list form by email (if you must, BUT you do realise it makes more work for you and for me with all your ‘in paragraph 4 d) iii after the word ‘annoying’ insert the word ‘technophobe’? Of course, some people may find tracking a bit tricky for reasons other than just not taking time to learn it, or because ‘I’m on an ipad’ (dyslexia for example) – so there are legitimate reasons to request or suggest alternatives.)
• (NB, nobody wants to receive untracked, in document edits – whether manually highlighted or unhighlighted for that hide and seek frisson. So definitely don’t suggest that.)

2 At the same time, say when you want amendments by / when you will take silence as agreement to lodge (circulate your draft promptly and allow a reasonable time for responses).

3 If you didn’t specify ‘no track changes’, don’t complain about track changeswhen they arrive in your inbox. Instead

• Learn track changes or
• Learn how to switch them off.
• remember to specify your preferences at the outset next time

If you receive multiple unconsolidated track changed versions you can legitimately say ‘Nuh-uh!’, and ask the subsequent senders to insert their tracking on the preceding track changed version and resend to you.

RESPONDING PARTIES

1 Follow the requests of the lead drafter on the ‘how’

• If asked for track changes
  • Use track changes or
  • Learn to use track changes
  • (If you cannot use track changes for dyslexia related reasons let people know)
• Whatever else you do, don’t use highlighting or untracked in-document edits. Everyone will hate you forever.

2 Meet the deadline or say if you can’t (and say when you can).

3 Think about summarising the key changes you’ve made in your covering email.

4 Acknowledge redrafts and confirm if you agree or have no objections.

EVERYONE

Learn track changes or how to switch them off(sensing a theme?).

• Yes, they do work on a mac (maybe not on Pages but frankly, if you are using Pages I can’t help you).
• Yes, you do have time. You do not realise how much time you are wasting refusing to use track changes. Honestly. Spent 10 minutes learning it. Save years of your life.
• I don’t know, but I suspect that using the ‘simple markup’ view may make the use of the track change function much more manageable for those with dyslexia, because it is a much cleaner view.

Don’t add stuff that wasn’t raised in court or in discussions

If your draft order is becoming a bit of a track change jungle, consider accepting some of the known uncontentious changes to clean it up a bit and make it legible. OR (temporarily) switch off the markup / change to simple markup view so you can see the wood for the trees / words for the red spaghetti.

Remember,

• One person’s grammar pedant is another’s precision of meaning. Don’t correct for style, but do correct for accuracy, clarity or meaning. Take a deep breath.
• Everyone is under time pressure. They might be in court.
• If you don’t agree – don’t waste your life arguing for days over it. Just identify what isn’t agreed. Collaborate to collate and set out each party’s position on any disputed point in a sentence. Send the draft to the judge with the issues /positions in a single email and ask her to resolve it.
• If you (reasonably) need more time (say, because one of you has court commitments that make a deadline impossible) collaborate to briefly email a request the judge saying how long and why.
• Sometimes people on the move can’t see the tracking on a mobile. They might not be able to fully check until they can get somewhere private and open up a laptop / ipad.
• Even if tracking is used you can change the way it presents to suit your preference.

That’s it.

Oh, and here is how to work tracking in six steps.

1. Open the doc in word. (If you work on an ipad and open docs straight from email tracking won’t be visible, but if you download word onto your ipad (its free) you will have an option to ‘open word’ once you’ve clicked to open the file (bottom right). If, when the doc opens in word, you can’t see the tracking you’ve been told is there, follow the instructions below about ‘markup’.
2. In MS Word find the REVIEW menu. There is an icon marked ‘track changes’ which turns tracking on or off (See the centre of the pic below, above the blue highlighted text – click the little arrow to the right of the icon to reveal the options, select ‘for everyone’ to switch it on, click it again to switch it off). Once it’s on every change you make will be ‘tracked’. What that looks like will depend on what your ‘markup’ setting are.
3. To the right of the tracking box is a box with the word ‘markup’ in it (on my ipad it shows as ‘display for review’but is in the same relative position). Click the arrow to reveal the options. To hide tracking and see a clean version select ‘no markup’. To reveal it again select ‘all markup. To see a less red spaghetti version that just shows you where edits are, click ‘simple markup’.
4. To the right again is an icon marked ‘accept’and one marked ‘reject’(on my ipad it shows as an icon with a tick and an icon with an x but is in the same relative position). Click the little arrow to the right of ‘accept’ to reveal the options, and accept either individual changes one by one, or all the changes (if you are happy with them and finished). ‘Accept and move to next’ will skip you automatically from one change straight to the next without having to trawl through unchanged text – handy. Use the Reject button to the right to reject and remove evidence of a change. Or, if you prefer right click on an edit where it appears to accept or reject it.
5. Don’t forget that before you finalise a document you need to accept or reject all changes and switch off tracking (Either via the track changes icon OR by clicking the arrow next to the Accept icon and selecting ‘accept all changes and stop tracking’). Otherwise the earlier versions of a draft can still be revealed by someone else later on (#awkward).
6. Word on a PC or older versions of word might look slightly different, but not a lot.

There. Wasn’t that hard, was it?

Now you have NO EXCUSE NOT TO USE TRACKING.

Hahahaha!

PS To all tracking enthusiasts : yes you may send this link to your colleagues who need a helpful nudge before joining the track change revolution. Solidarity, trackers!