This tip is based on questions posed on the CALL listserv; thanks to John Sadler and Linda Keddy.

According to “How to look for records of … Privy Council since 1386”, a finding aid produced by the United Kingdom National Archives, royal proclamations “are formal announcements made by the King or Queen and vary greatly in nature, from declarations of war or states of emergency, to the summoning or dissolution of Parliament. … [They] were usually issued with the agreement of the Privy Council and can therefore be found in Privy Council papers.”

Unfortunately no site has a …

How would you punctuate the following?

Former Minneapolis Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin and two colleagues J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane have been charged with multiple offences in connection with the death of George Floyd.

No points for saying there should be a comma after Minneapolis; that’s too obvious.

Demerit points for suggesting there should be commas on either side of Derek Chauvin; there are multiple (former) Minneapolis cops, so the commas would be wrong, because they’d suggest Chauvin is the only one in that category.

Points for a comma after colleagues and one after Lane; you …

It happens in French too.

A lawyer in Lyons (Lyon, to use the French spelling) complained recently on Twitter about contractual drafting like this:

Par ailleurs, si l’Acquéreur envisagé en émet le souhait, celui-ci devra avoir la possibilité de…

Translated literally, that means ‘Moreover, if the prospective Acquiror indicates its desire to do so, it must have the ability to …’

As the lawyer points out, one could simply say, L’Acquéreur pourra… (’The Acquiror may …’).

This stuff drives him (and me) dingue (crazy).

Chapeau, Quentin-Alexandre Brigaud, for the tweet!

–Neil Guthrie (@guthrieneil)…

Things seem to go awry when people use even slightly complicated sentence structure.

The venerable New York Times, usually a stickler for grammar (of an American variety), initially published this:

More familiar to we of the social media era is a type of …

This has since been corrected, changing that we to us (no doubt after readers harrumphed at the error).

You need an object for the preposition to, not a subject. It would be correct, of course, to write We of the social media era are more familiar with …

Someone else who ought to know better …

Assuming we want to look as confident and professional on someone else’s computer screen as we do in person, here are a few tips for hosting or attending online meetings.

1) Ensure confidentiality and security

Not all video conferencing software provides the same security, so consider whether your meetings will require true end-to-end encryption. To avoid uninvited guests logging into your meeting and listening-in or causing disruption, require a password for entry. It’s also a good idea to use a virtual waiting room where attendees will log in and wait until they are specifically granted access by the host.

2) …

As libraries reopen, one concern is how to deal with books that have been returned by patrons. The Australian Library and Information Association is recommending the following:

“For paper-based products, leave books untouched in a dedicated quarantine area for a 24-hour period prior to handling and recirculating. Sanitising books with liquid disinfectants can damage books and is not recommended.”

For more information on the subject, you may want to look at the Reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums Project.

— Susannah Tredwell…

It’s hard to believe that the COVID-19 lockdown began only three months ago. It feels like forever! And yet, many are predicting that we are just getting started. 

My tip?

Use this time for business planning. Don’t just dust off any old run-of-the-mill template, mind you. Take an honest and deeply introspective look at your future.

Whether your market has been irrevocably changed or you’re expecting things to pick up and return to normal (the new normal…), most lawyers have experienced some form of a shake up. As difficult as it may be to put a positive spin on a …

The first horror is from a tweet by a business school which shall remain nameless (hint: it’s in London, Ontario): There is still a few spots left in our upcoming workshop. Good Lord.

Horror 2: A client of ours is looking for a real estate lawyer situate in Montana. Please. Maybe located in Montana, or just in Montana.

Horror 3: premia. No. Premiums.

Horror 4: I’m free until 10 tomorrow? I dunno, are you? #UnnecessaryQuestionMark

Horror 5: How to Make Working from Home, Work for You. For pity’s sake, lose that comma.

Horror 6: …

A reader asked why we call a group of lawyers who practise together a firm.

The term goes back a while.

In Italian, firma has been used since the sixteenth century to describe a commercial enterprise or business; the word also means ‘a signature’. Firmar and firmare (in Spanish and Italian, respectively) have meant ’to sign a document’ since the tenth century. All are derived from the post-classical Latin firmare (’to sign or ratify’).

English borrowed firm in the signature sense by the 1570s. By the eighteenth century, it had come to mean, by extension, the name under which …

As long as we don’t call it that, though. (In part because Let’s get phygital may conjure up images of Olivia Newton-John in a headband for those of a certain age.)

Phygital is a newish (and unlovely) term for communication or connection that combines the physical and the digital. It comes from the world of marketing and sales.

If you are hosting a virtual breakfast or happy hour for the summer students in your office using a digital platform, you can make it (ugh) phygital by sending participants all the food and drink they need to have an experience that …