Having cut my working teeth in an editorial department in law book publishing, Typography for Lawyers is just up my street.

With the advent of the microprocessor, along came word processing, then desktop publishing, then the web. Along the way regular users have been given ever more sophisticated tools easily to generate typography and layouts previously the preserve of skilled designers and craftsmen. Of course most made a hash of it and most still do.

Matthew Butterick is a civil litigation attorney in Los Angeles. Before that he worked as a digital typeface designer and ran a website development studio. He thinks that lawyers’ poor use of typography is for lack of information, not lack of will, and hopes to fill that void with his website. It’s an excellent, concise web-based manual with particular reference to the peculiarities of legal documents; but I doubt it will find its mark.