25, 150.

Twenty five is a number that should become part of the lawyer's psyche. This number refers to the average length of a sentence - not one of those things a judge hands out - but one of those combinations of words that people write. Lawyers write lots of these things.

Why is 25 so important to lawyers? Well, if you write a sentence that is more than twenty five words in length, it becomes difficult to understand. This means that a sentence that is longer than 25 works can be easy to misunderstand. Judges and clients may start asking difficult questions about what exactly you are trying to say. According to Garner*, you can write sentences of up to 35 words in length sometimes, but your average sentence length should not exceed 25 words. Ideally, you should be able to write paragraphs that contain sentences with an average of 20 words, and still be able to say what you need to say.

Now, the next number, 150. This refers to the maximum number of words a paragraph should contain. Really good writers can actually produce effective paragraphs of only 100 words or less in length.

What does this mean for Italian lawyers? It means you can write shorter, simpler sentences. This means fewer errors, fewer corrections, and happier senior partners.

25 - average number of words in sentence.
150 - the maximum number of words in a paragraph.

And, yes, it is possible to respect these rules, but you will need to work hard to achieve these goals.

*Bryan A Garner, Legal Writing in Plain English, University of Chicago Press.