We ... remind the parties that our Handbook of Practice and Internal Procedures states that "parties are strongly urged to limit the use of acronyms" and "should avoid using acronyms that are not widely known." Brief-writing, no less than "written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble." George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 13 Horizon 76 (1946). Here, both parties abandoned any attempt to write in plain English, instead abbreviating every conceivable agency and statute involved, familiar or not, and littering their briefs with references to "SNF," "HLW," "NWF," "NWPA," and "BRC" – shorthand for "spent nuclear fuel," "highlevel radioactive waste," the "Nuclear Waste Fund," the "Nuclear Waste Policy Act," and the "Blue Ribbon Commission."
National Assoc. of Regulatory Utility Commissioners v. United States Dept. of Energy, No. 11-1066 (D.C. Cir. June 1, 2012) (Silberman, J.)
I had intended to post a few choice paragraphs from the briefs to illustrate what he's talking about, but I kept falling asleep while reading them.
The Orwell quote about "bad habits" is one I have been using in legal-writing seminars for a long time (I give those seminars, I mean, I don't just shout out Orwell quotes from the audience). It's impossible to avoid this entirely, but don't give into it, either.
