Before and after. Today, the last paragraph of the petition, and a lesson that runs backward from the last one.
If "Comes Now" opens ten thousand Texas petitions, this closes them. The prayer for relief. It reads, more or less, like this every time:
“WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED, Plaintiff respectfully prays that Defendant be cited to appear and answer herein, and that upon final hearing, Plaintiff have and recover judgment against Defendant for damages within the jurisdictional limits of this Court, together with pre- and post-judgment interest, costs of court, and such other and further relief, at law or in equity, to which Plaintiff may show himself justly entitled.”
Pass One: Read It as the Court Will.
This paragraph is the ask. It is the one place in the whole document where you tell the court exactly what you want. And it is written in a costume so heavy the ask nearly disappears. "Premises considered" considers nothing. "Respectfully prays" is throat-clearing. "Justly entitled" decorates.
Pass Two: Separate the Music from the Machinery.
Here is where this Redline turns different from the others. Most of our before-and-afters end in a cut. This one does not, because buried in the ritual are words that do real legal work. Cited to appear and answer. Judgment within the jurisdictional limits. Interest. Costs. And the quiet one that matters most, such other and further relief to which Plaintiff may show himself entitled. That clause is not decoration. It is the line that lets a court grant you something you proved at trial but did not specifically name months earlier in your pleading.
“Plaintiff asks that Defendant be cited to appear and answer, and that on final hearing Plaintiff recover judgment for damages within the Court's jurisdictional limits, pre- and post-judgment interest, costs, and all other relief, at law or in equity, to which Plaintiff is entitled.”
Same requests. The incantation is gone. Every operative word, including the catch-all, stays.
Pass Three: Know Which Boilerplate Is Load-Bearing.
Comes Now you cut, because it does nothing. Wherefore you keep, because under the music sits machinery. That is the whole lesson, and it runs backward from the last Redline: the skill is not deleting everything that sounds old-fashioned. The skill is knowing which old words are still holding weight. A lawyer who cuts every phrase that sounds like a costume will, sooner or later, cut the one that was load-bearing and lose a remedy he already won.
Why It Matters.
Plain writing is a discipline, not a reflex. The point was never to hate every inherited phrase. It was to read each one and ask a single question: is this word working, or is it just music? Cut the music. Keep the machinery. Know the difference cold.
