Effective Document Reviews – the Old School approach

In both my personal and professional life, I love words. I get a kick out of wordsmithing a document, of finding a great turn of phrase in a book, and especially in helping someone draft a contract that hits the mark legally, commercially AND linguistically. I fully believe that it’s possible to have a legal document that is a pleasure to read.

But transforming a heavy contract into a more palatable bit of prose takes a lot of work, and many rounds of editing. Technology gives us a helping hand, and I’m a big fan of Word’s document comparison and track change functions, but when it comes time to get into the nitty-gritty of a contract review I’m still partial to a good ol’ fashioned pen and paper approach.

When you’re holding the document in your hands, reading the printed words right off the page rather than on a screen, the experience seems a lot more authentic. I’ve noticed that my comments seem to be more instinctual, rather than calculated, and they’re certainly a lot funnier – I’ve found myself scribbling a ‘HA!’ after particularly problematic paragraphs…

Taking things offline is also helpful when you want to be sure to avoid sending a marked-up document to someone who shouldn’t be seeing it. It’s a lot more effort to take a hand-marked copy, scan it and send it to someone to share your thoughts, but it also means you’re less likely to hit ‘send’ and then regret it. Think of these hand-marked pages as your personal, private drafts – to be molded and refined via word-processing as you go.

If you’re always proofing or drafting your documents on the screen, I recommend making the switch to the paper and pen approach for your first passes in order to capture richer feedback. Here are some tips to get you started.

Pick one: Double-sided with wide margins, or single-sided with normal margins

Being conscious of how much paper we’re using is important, but you’ll need ample room for your commentary. Printing single-sided lets you use the back of the sheet for your thoughts and drafting, but if you’d rather stick to double-sided, make sure to leave larger than normal margins so that you can fit in all of your notes.

Keep at hand: blue, green and red pens

Mixing up the colours will make interpreting your notes (which may sometimes be chicken-scratchy) later on much easier. Drafting in blue, positive feedback in green, and negative feedback in red will help you decipher comments.

Read, respond, repeat: It takes more than one review

Give the document a quick read through. Mark the elements (good or bad) that jump out at you right away in green or red, but don’t delve into the wordsmithing quite yet. After this first ‘read, respond’ – take a break. Let your brain engage in something else for a few hours, or even overnight. Then repeat – but this time reading more closely, taking out that blue pen to make improvements to language or insert more complete commentary in the margins. You’ll be amazed at how much can change between your two reviews.

Translate: This document is your starting point

The handwritten comments will have given you a chance to formulate opinions and responses, without the pressure of sharing them with others. When it comes time to share, use your notes as the starting point for a formal, word-processed document mark-up. You can edit out the comments that shouldn’t be seen by others (those ‘HA!s’ …gotta go) and start to use tools like document track changes in Word to shape the document.

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In the next few weeks, I’ll share with you some of my secrets on how using the ‘Tools of the Trade’ – track changes and document comparisons – can streamline your reviews, improve your feedback and get you to a high quality finished document – stay tuned!

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Are you an old school drafter? New school? Any tips or tricks to suggest for when taking a document review offline?