Your client is reading this on a phone, in pain, possibly on medication, and possibly not in their first language. Every rule below follows from that one fact.
Aim for a seventh-grade reading level
Roughly half of American adults read below an eighth-grade level, and injury and stress push comprehension lower still. Seventh grade is not writing down to anyone. It is the level most news outlets aim for.
Three things get you most of the way:
- Short sentences. Under twenty words. If a sentence has two commas, it is probably two sentences.
- Short words. "Use" not "utilize." "Ask" not "inquire." "Must" not "it is imperative that."
- One idea per sentence. Clients skim. A sentence with a caveat in the middle loses the point.
You can check any draft for free by searching for a Flesch-Kincaid calculator and pasting the text in. Aim for grade 7 or below, or a reading ease score above 60.
Swap the legal words
Legal writing is precise for a reason, but precision your client cannot parse is not precision. Common swaps:
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| It is imperative that you | Please |
| Loss of consortium | How this affected your family |
| Special damages | Your bills and lost pay |
| Policy limits | How much insurance they have |
| Demand package | The letter we send the insurance company |
| Lien | A bill that gets paid back from your settlement |
| Disbursement | When we send you your money |
| Execute this release | Sign this form to finish the case |
| Discovery | The stage where both sides share information |
| Plateau in your status | Your doctors say you are as healed as you will get |
The test is not whether the word is correct. It is whether your client would use it talking to a friend.
Say what to do, not what happened
"Your medical records have been requested" tells a client nothing about their day. "We asked your doctor for your records. That takes a few weeks. You do not need to do anything right now" tells them exactly where they stand.
Every message should answer two questions: what is happening, and what should I do about it. If the answer to the second is "nothing," say so. Silence about a client's job is what makes people call.
Write the state, not the moment
A phase message goes out after the phase changes in your system, at whatever offset and time you set.
One day is the offset worth defaulting to, and not only for pacing. Phases get set by mistake, or set and put back a few minutes later. A day's delay means an accidental change can be corrected before anything reaches a client, and nobody gets congratulated on a settlement that was a misclick.
You are not limited to one message per phase. A phase can carry several at different offsets, which is what the long ones need. One on day one, another at thirty days, another at ninety, all firing from the same phase change.
Whenever a message lands, it gives you exactly one fact: someone at the firm moved this case into a bucket with that name.
It does not tell you when the underlying event happened, because phases get updated whenever someone gets to it. And it does not tell you which step inside the phase is done. A case in litigation might have been filed last month, might be getting filed this afternoon, or might have just landed on the litigation team's desk.
So describe what the stage involves, not what the firm has just done:
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| We filed your case in court this week | Your case is now in the litigation stage. This is the part of the process that goes through the court |
| Your doctors just released you | Your case has moved into the demand stage |
| We sent your demand today | This is the stage where we put together the letter that goes to the insurance company |
| Great news, we settled yesterday | Your case has reached the settlement stage, where we work out a number with the insurance company |
| Your case is closed and everything has been paid | Thank you for trusting us with your case |
Both columns tell the client where they are. Only the right-hand one is still true if the phase was updated three weeks late, or a step early.
The same caution covers facts about the case itself. A phase does not tell you whether this client has been paid, whether an offer exists, whether treatment has finished, or whether there was another driver. Write around anything you would otherwise have to look up per client:
- "any paperwork from your case" rather than "your settlement paperwork"
- "the insurance details" rather than "the other driver's insurance"
- "this is the stage where a number gets worked out" rather than "we are negotiating now"
Three habits carry most of this:
- Skip "this week," "today," "just," "yesterday" and "recently." They date a message that may be read long after you wrote it.
- Describe the stage in general terms, not your current activity. "This is the stage where we collect your records" holds whether the collecting starts tomorrow or finished a fortnight ago. "We are collecting your records now" is a coin flip.
- Assume nothing about the case beyond the phase. If a sentence would be embarrassing to someone still treating, still waiting on money, or still waiting on an offer, rewrite it until it is not.
Sometimes the cleanest fix is to drop the status sentence altogether. A closing message works better as a plain thank-you than as an announcement, and a thank-you cannot be wrong on any day it arrives.
The same goes for bracketed placeholders. Keep them to things whoever sets this up knows without looking anything up, like a phone number. Anything needing a policy check, a retention period or a typical timeline, is better left out than left in, because a placeholder nobody fills in reaches every client exactly as you typed it.
Ask them to add, not to check
The Quilia app is your client's own record of their case: the photos they took, the bills that arrive in the mail, how they are feeling this week. That makes it the right place to send them whenever you need something from them.
Write the ask as a contribution:
Please take a picture of any bill you get in the mail and add it in the app.
Name the screen when you can. "Add the doctors you have seen to your Doctor List" gets more back than "upload your documents," because the client knows exactly where to go and when they are done.
What you can personalize
One automation goes to everyone in its audience, so the only things that change per client are the merge variables. There are seven, and this is the complete list:
| Variable | Becomes |
|---|---|
client_first_name | The client's first name |
client_last_name | The client's last name |
client_full_name | The client's full name |
sender_first_name | The first name of whoever the message is sent as |
sender_last_name | The last name of whoever the message is sent as |
sender_full_name | The full name of whoever the message is sent as |
firm_name | Your firm's name |
Write them in double braces. Anything else in double braces is not a variable and reaches the client as literal {{like_this}}, which is worse than not personalizing at all.
Everything else in the message should be true for everyone receiving it. When you want to point at something that varies from client to client, point at the channel instead of the specific:
Call [phone] any time and we will put you through to your case manager.
That line lands correctly for every client in the send, and it gives them something to act on rather than a name to remember.
For a specific appointment, figure or update that belongs to one client, send it as a message from a person.
Name where to reach you
End with a line the client can act on. A phone number, or Ask a Question if your firm has it turned on.
Call [phone] any time with questions.
Say what happens when they use it, so the line is an instruction rather than a gesture. "Call [phone] and we will put you through to your case manager" is acted on; a vague invitation to get in touch is not.
Keep it short
Three sentences is usually enough. If a message needs more than five, it probably needs a phone call instead, or one of the phase videos doing the explaining for you.
Key goals
- Grade 7 or below
- No word your client would not use themselves
- Every message says what to do, even if the answer is nothing
- Every ask points at a screen the client can act on
- Every message names where to reach you
See also How Long Should Case Updates Be, Writing Effective Subject Lines and Building Client Trust Through Communication.