The Chronology of Relevant Events, by Chinua Asuzu

(All quotations in this piece are from Bryan A. Garner, ‘LawProse Lesson #264: The chronology of relevant events,’ lawprose.org)

In dispute-resolution matters, always ask clients to prepare and send you a chronology of relevant events. You may do this in a face-to-face interview with the client or the client’s representative, or you may do it in your client-care letter. 

Get this report as soon as possible after receiving instructions. This report from the client should list, “day by day and time by time, every important occurrence bearing on the interactions between parties.” 

Having to prepare the timeline forces the client to review the pertinent interactions and transactions more minutely and hence “to understand precisely what has happened.”

So it’s best for the client, rather than the attorney, to prepare this chronology. But if the client is illiterate, then conduct a close interview that enables you prepare the report yourself. 

This chronological report helps you, “[a]s your client’s counselor, … to understand the circumstances that have led to a dispute.”

It will enable you “understand the diverse elements involved: e-mails, phone calls, meetings, and other conversations. The chronology helps you fit events together as if they were pieces of a puzzle. It’s a crucial step in case preparation.” 

When dealing with corporate clients, encourage them to convene a meeting or set up a task force to prepare this report. Members will remind one another of the relevant events. The chronology of relevant events can be the most crucial preparatory step for writing your brief’s fact section. Give it time. Ask questions to amplify its contents. You’ll get not only details but also a sense of the story and an impression about the equities. You’ll see clearer where lies your client’s edge, strategically or otherwise.

When it comes time to prepare the fact section of your brief, the chronology of relevant events will guide you. But never copy and paste from the chronology, which, unlike your fact section, can feature sentences or paragraphs that begin or read, “On September 16, 2016, at 10:00 a.m., …. On September 17, 2016, at 11:38 a.m., ….” That species of carbon-dating is unwelcome in your fact section, and “as a matter of prose style, it’s unremittingly tedious.”

So don’t be finicky about exact dates and times, which are often not only unnecessary but also undesirable. And you’re not an astrologer. Recount the events the way a good storyteller would tell it. Identify the characters and situate them in time and place. “Give mostly relative times: ‘An hour later,’ ‘The following morning,’ ‘For two months,’ etc. When the story calls for specific references, be only as precise as necessary: ‘The following Monday,’ ‘On the morning of March 12,’ ‘In May 2015,’ and so on.”