Writing Out Dollar Amounts in Legal Documents

Disclaimer: Gentry Law Group, LLC has provided this blog to give us a way to describe our thoughts and analyses that we think might be useful to the public. In no case is it legal advice and should not be used as such. This blog does not establish an attorney-client relationship between you and Gentry Law Group, LLC. This blog is not a substitute for legal advice from a licensed lawyer. But we hope you found it interesting and useful! If you ask most lawyers why they do it this way, they don`t get an answer. The benefits of simply writing down the numbers are obvious. Only one number must be inserted or changed. It also takes up less space and makes a document less « legal ». A very experienced lawyer once told me that he preferred to write only the numbers, because if you both write the number with words and add the numbers, what do you do if they don`t match? Contracts come in all shapes and sizes, but they are essentially designed to record an agreement between two or more people or entities. The process begins when someone makes an offer and someone else accepts it. The contract is validly concluded when the parties exchange or promise something of value, such as money, for goods or services. As you might expect, dollar sums are a feature of most contracts.

It is important to write this number clearly so that there is no room for litigation in the future. It is common for writers to use a mixture of words and numbers to express large sums of money: $4.4 billion; $3 million. This approach can make it easier to read the amounts of money, especially if a particular provision contains several large amounts. But don`t switch to a mix of words and numbers when other numbers in the same context use all digits. And don`t go beyond one decimal place to express fractions. I have mentioned in the past that some of my editorial and written work included documents for law firms or related legal applications. Legal filings are beyond my expertise, but I`ve done a lot of work for law firms that typically target other lawyers or potential clients. According to « Legal Writing: How to Write Legal Briefs, Memos, and Other Legal Documents, » for a full amount, you can either write the amount preceded by a dollar sign or write the total amount in words. For example, if the amount is £195, you can use « $300 » or « three hundred dollars » in the document. Do not add decimal places to the number if the amount does not contain cents.

On the other hand, good legal writing can be both interesting and entertaining (as Justice Posner and others have shown time and time again). But to stay focused, the limited and legally recognized use of this practice when writing checks and other financial instruments has no place in other types of documents. Keep people spelling things on cheques if they want to. But in other documents, not only is there no legal reason to follow this practice, but it also creates more problems than it claims to solve. One of the bad things I rarely have to go through in legal writing is the completely unnecessary notation of numbers. Not many things about professional writing really make me angry, but this is one of them. W D Adkins lives in Atlanta, Georgia and has been writing professionally since 2008. He writes about business, personal finance and careers. Adkins holds a master`s degree in history and sociology from Georgia State University. In 2009, he became a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Aside from isolated references, Chicago-style adherents should use the cent sign for amounts under $1.

However, if the reference appears near another sum of money of $1 or more, the cents should be formatted with the dollar sign and numbers.3 When I think about this point seriously (« placement only »), it seems to me that the problem resembles both the shared infinitive problem and the superstition that a preposition can never end a sentence. In many cases, these things are absolutely true for clear writing. In some cases, these are not necessarily problems, but they produce unpleasant writing. In other cases, they don`t matter. The « only » problem is real, but it is not a problem in all situations, so the solution should not be applied reflexively. When it comes to advice on what to do when writing numbers in other documents – even legal documents – it`s not a difficult decision. Do not spell large numbers. It`s extra work for you, extra work for your readers, and it makes mistakes more likely to creep into your documents.

Keep it simple and use numbers as much as possible (as outlined in the style guide you`re using). It is included here, along with most of the credentials removed. It is less a strictly legal document than a government document, but the idea is exactly the same: someone felt the need to state the large numbers used to describe a long series of measures of property boundaries, and the result is anathema. Details are crucial in a legal document. If a document contains a dollar amount, such as an amount due for an invoice, the exact amount should be clear to each reader. For this purpose, dollars and cents are written in legal documents in words and numbers. This ensures that the right amount is understood, especially if it is a large and uneven amount. so that writing, including writing numbers, was unusual and *only* done for important documents; *I would reverse these two words to put the diminutive « only » immediately before what it is supposed to reduce. Better yet, consider « made only for important documents. » See Gregg, page 1072.* Some currency signs are shared by many currencies, and you can make it clear which currency you are referring to by adding the currency sign.

For example, the dollar sign ($) is used for currencies in many countries other than the United States, primarily for currencies that use currencies in dollars (including Australia, Brunei, and Canada) or pesos (including Argentina, Chile, and Mexico). If a contract between parties from different countries is for a currency that uses the dollar sign, the use of an appropriately modified currency code or sign, such as A$ for the Australian dollar and Mex$ for Mexican pesos, would make it clear which currency is being referred to. If you write less than a dollar in a legal document, start with the written number, followed by the word « cents » — for example, « forty-nine cents. » Note the use of hyphens between the numbers in the tens and digits in the figure. Follow words with the numeric number in parentheses — for example, « forty-nine cents (49 cents). » If the amount is less than 10 cents, simply write the full number — « nine cents. » Jayne Thompson holds an LL.B. in Law and Business Administration from the University of Birmingham and an LL.M.