“House style” refers to a firm’s system of formatting and structuring documents in a manner that ensures its output remains visually consistent to internal and external recipients. Law firms love their own house styles, so when proofreading documents produced by your firm, check that house style is adhered to at all times. To that end, below are some of the inconsistencies and mistakes that you should look out for when it comes to checking house style. 

Bullet points: firms tend to have strict house style rules for bullet points and numbered/lettered lists, so familiarise yourself with these. Bullet points with identical indentation should be of the same style (e.g. black dot, white dot, square or dash) and numbers and letters should be used consistently (e.g. “1.”, “(1)”, “1)” or “I”; “A”, “a”, “(a)” or “a.”).

Currencies: check whether house style mandates that currencies should be written in a certain way (e.g. £, sterling, GBP or pound), and make sure the approach taken is consistent throughout the document.

Dates: check how the firm expects dates to be written. Some might use 1 January 2022, 1 Jan 2022 or 1^st January 2022, whilst others might use 01/01/2022 or 01.01.2022. Keep dates consistent and in line with house style.

Defined terms: firms have different ways of representing defined terms, for instance (Company A), (“Company A”) or (Company A), so check defined terms are formatted consistently and in accordance with house style.

Font: if you have pasted in text from other documents, you can end up with a mix of fonts being used. Check whether the firm’s house style prescribes the use of a particular font, and ensure it has been used consistently.

Headings: check whether there is a prescribed size and format for headings and sub-headings.

Justification: check whether the firm expects text to be justified or left aligned.

Numerical figures: ensure numerical figures are referred to consistently (e.g. £1,000,000; £1 million; or £1m. Not a combination of the three).

Punctuation: check the firm’s policies regarding punctuation. For instance, you may need to ensure that the end of each sentence that forms part of a list has a semi-colon (with the last sentence in the list being followed by a full stop).

Practical tip: before sending off a long document to your supervisor, control+f “; or” and “; and” to quickly check whether your lists are correct after amending a document. It’s easy to cut, paste and move around a list while forgetting to move the punctuation intended for the penultimate line of that list.

Spelling: check the English language rules adopted by your firm. For example, some US headquartered firms insist on their international offices (including their London offices) using US spelling throughout documents, whereas others are more flexible, or may only require US spelling in specific circumstances.

Citations: firms may have a particular way of referencing cases, statutes or external documents. Some may want the party names to be underlined or italicised. Some may want cases to be referenced only in footnotes, whilst others may prefer you to include references in the main body of text. Consistency is key. In addition, ensure that references to other sections or documents are correct and consistent (e.g. “Para 1”, “Paragraph 1”, “Clause 1” or “Section 1”).

Beware, if you’re working on a document that has been based on another firm’s house style, you will probably be expected to conform to their house style. Don’t completely change another firm’s document unless you have been explicitly told to do so.