Hello. I am curious to hear any recommendations for fonts for expert witness reports. I write reports for various types of legal cases and want them to be professional and legible. I also want my reports to stand out slightly, not too much, while remaining professional. Thank you in advance!
Hey doc802. I write a lot of medicolegal reports too. I was a rusted-on devotee to Times New Roman from the outset, though when I came across Typography for Lawyers, I loved Matt’s work so much that I took the leap and purchased his Equity fonts. The moment I applied Equity B to the report I was working on at the time, it was like a Damascus Road moment … the scales fell from my eyes and I could see! Typography was the final touch I needed to tweak to have the perfect medicloegal report template.
For mine, numbered paragraphs using square brackets, 12 point Equity B, 12 point space after each paragraph, citing/referencing per the Australian Guide to Legal Citation 4 (given I’m Australian).
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you may settle on a different format, but I hope that helps.
As a lawyer, I am amazed/delighted at the idea of an expert who takes any interest in the appearance of their report!
My own view is that the standard kind of serif fonts like Times New Roman (and Equity) give a document the feel of lawyer-produced submissions. For an expert report I would suggest something semi-serif or even sans-serif, but not as basic as Arial or Helvetica.
Maybe try Sitka (free) or Butterick’s font, Heliotrope.