The Transformation Toward Visual Communication and Brevity, aka Lawyers Can Communicate Differently and Still Be Lawyers

• Date: 01 August 2018

48 ELR 10710 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 8-2018

brought lengthy comments with four sublevels of legal

arguments, but rather ones that contained graphics, t ables,

and summaries. A nd when I prepared for meetings in the

White House’s Roosevelt Room, I quickly learned that busy

cabinet secretaries and chiefs of sta would focus their ful l

attention on graphics, tables, and maps, and barely refer-

ence even short memos.

us, I moved from government service into private

practice appreciating that even regulators, who are legally

compelled to read it all and transl ate comments into count-

less pages of Code of Federal Regu lations text, are drawn

to the visual and concise over lengthy tomes.

is trend only has accelerated in recent years. In the

middle of my EPA tenure, Steve Jobs gave his famous

introduction of the rst iPhone while the senior EPA

lawyers were meeting in New York City. I remember us

dreaming of trading in our text-based BlackBerry phones

for the visual iPhones. But as unrealistic as that seemed

at the time, none of us anticipated how smartphones with

limitless apps like YouTube and Instagram would produce

a generation that learns by watching as opposed to read-

ing, and thus accelerate the pace of change in how people

acquire information toward communications dominated

by visuals. Law yers may not want to admit it, but clients

and regulators are not immune to this trend.

Finally, along with the consumption of visual commu-

nication comes an increasing sophistication in the creation

of such messages. When I worked at EPA 10 years ago, we

were pretty proud if we simply generated a poster every few

months that looked clean and creative. In contrast, Por-

ter and Watts demonstrate the sharply more sophisticated

visual message s the Obama and Trump Administrations

routinely create in real time on issues big and small. Agen-

cies and the public are vastly more experienced with tech-

nology than a decade ago, creating new expectations for

COMMENT

The Transformation Toward Visual

Communication and Brevity,

aka Lawyers Can Communicate

Differently and Still Be Lawyers

by Roger Martella

Roger Martella is General Counsel for General Electric’s Environment, Health, and Safety operations

worldwide, and formerly served as General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Putting words to paper is part of a lawyer’s DNA.

We’re taught from the rst days of law school that

the currency we most often trade in is the quality—

and quantity—of the written word. e rst assignment

for many law students is graded on the comprehensive-

ness of the legal documents they generate. Many attorneys

spend their early years writing memos that are rewarded

based on how much they write—and then transition to

writing briefs where the rst question asked frequently sti ll

is: what’s the word limit?

us, the premise in Visual Rulemaking, by Professors

Elizabeth Porter and Kathryn Watts—that graphics and

visuals are ga ining traction on the written word in the

regulatory setting—seems to threaten the very nature of

everything to which lawyers have dedicated their ca reers.

But the transformation they identify is real and necessar y.

It’s increasingly true that to be successful in persuading an

audience to adopt a point of view, lawyers need to trans-

form their advocacy methods to employ new forms of com-

munication, both relying on visuals as the authors discuss

and—another concept antithetica l to much legal train-

ing—adopting a theme of brevity.

I. The Growth of Visuals in

Legal Communications

Porter and Watts provide numerous examples of how the

adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” increasing ly is

becoming the norm in regulatory advocacy.

is does not surprise me. Going back to my tenure

at EPA from 2006 to 2008, smart advocates already were

making use of visuals to stand out from endless stacks of

rulemaking c omments. When considering a nal rule, I

would ask the team to share the best comments on both

sides of an issue. What struck me wa s that they rarely

Copyright © 2018 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.