Do intensifiers such as “clearly” help or hurt a brief?

Most of us learned in law school that using “intensifying” words like clearly and obviously in briefs actually weakens our arguments. But what does the empirical evidence say? For those who missed the article when it was first published, research by Professor Lance Long of Stetson Law School shows a measureable positive correlation between the use of some intensifiers and success on appeal. But he also points out that the reasons for that relationship are not so clear.

See the abstract and download the full article for free at SSRN.

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Increasing_beat.png#file, via Wikimedia Commons