Effective legal writers use plainer language
UK Income Tax Act, 1952 and 2019
My three favourite arguments for plainer legal writing are:
better relationships,
fairness and
efficiency and effectiveness.
There are more reasons, but let’s start there.
The Better Relationships Argument
Readers feel plainer legal writing meets their needs, and they feel respected, which creates better relationships. This is true whether you are writing a business contract or a brief for a client.
Some companies in South Africa are using comic contracts in their businesses. Comic contracts rely on pictures to talk about parties’ rights and responsibilities. They are especially useful where language differences and illiteracy can make it difficult for parties to read the contracts. In the years that Creative Contracts has been creating these contracts for their clients, no contract has been disputed in court. The employees who sign comic employment contract say the documents show that employers respect them.
Your clients are probably not lawyers. They don’t know legal language or procedures—this is part of the reason they hired you. However, if you write to them in legal language, you haven’t really bridged the gap for them, have you? I’m not talking about the 50 or so legal terms of art they might need to be aware of, like tort. I’m talking about the “in receipt ofs” and the “hereinafters” that appear in letters, contracts, organizational bylaws, and other legal writing.
Clients will love that you communicate with them in their language rather than yours. They will trust you to lead them through a maze of procedures, forms and deadlines. Judges will love that you can make your point succinctly. They will trust your argument more if they understand it the first time. Don’t undermine a good argument with awkward writing. If you’re not sure judges will accept plain language, visit the Supreme Court of Canada, which now offers short versions of decisions that are easy for the public to read. An expert can explain a complex topic simply; they don’t make simple subjects sound complicated.
The Fairness Argument
Readers understand what they agree to in plainer contracts; this clarity is only fair since contracts are binding, but it might also save time and money.
A friend took over her cell phone contract from her parents, who had been paying for it. Contract terms had changed over 10 years, and no longer included unlimited talk. The sales staff didn’t mention to her that only texting was now unlimited.
During the early months of the pandemic, this woman’s call centre job moved to her home, and her employer asked her to use her own phone. She used it for eight hours a day until her service was cut off for nonpayment of her bill, which was suddenly more than $5000. The company ended up forgiving the bill because the woman showed what her previous contract included, because she negotiated with them over a couple of days, and likely also because there was a pandemic (other call centre workers were probably having the same problem).
My friend lost time and gained significant stress. Of course, she could have avoided the situation by reading her cell phone contract more carefully. Her service provider lost staff time, wasted money correcting an unnecessary problem and nearly lost a client. They could have avoided the situation by giving her clearer information and a readable contract. Instead, this 15-page contract is nearly unreadable. It’s written in legal and technical jargon. It starts with useless information and goes on to detail the terms (or service limitations) deep in the document. And the tiny typeface runs nearly fully across a sheet of printer paper, with vague headings breaking up 10- and 20-line paragraphs.
The Efficiency and Effectiveness Argument
Readers are too busy to interpret jargon and weave through convoluted sentences. They are more likely to read, understand, and act on plainer documents.
A board was having trouble with members acting outside of the organization’s governance policies. Eventually, they learned that board members were not reading the policies, which had been written by a lawyer in the early 1970s, and had not been updated since. The board tried to deal with offences as they occurred by creating new policies. However, after several years, their 75 pages of policies included rules they no longer needed and some that conflicted with each other.
After working with a plain language consultant, they ended up with nearly 25 percent less writing. They tested samples of the document and found that new board members could easily understand the policies.
You should do this, and you can
As a lawyer or paralegal, you write every day. Your documents record business agreements, describe rights and responsibilities, guide people who work together, and persuade judges, clients and other lawyers of the rightness of your position.
You will always be most effective when readers can easily read your writing. It doesn’t matter whether your readers don’t read your language well or are too busy to make sense of the verbal equivalent of interpretive dance (I’ve seen those 132-word sentences). Take a few minutes to think about your reader and what they need from you in this piece of writing. You and they will be glad you did.
Learn more at www.plainlanguageacademy.com or www.watkinscampbell.com