Lesson 04 - Legal Professions

plain language will become compulsory

legalese will disappear from legal documents

4. Read Text 2 and check your answers from the table above.

Text 2:

Initially, there were fears that the Plain Language Movement may make legal documents less authoritative or less legally binding. In fact, the opposite has been true. Surveys of lawyers, judges and clients revealed that the adoption of plain language was welcome and long over-due. Large law firms even found that the use of plain language resulted in greater profits. This is because clients were happy to pay for legal services that were in plain English. Time was also saved because the lawyers writing contracts, advice or court submissions could write them much faster. In a time conscious economy, people prefer to be able to read and understand a document in one reading.

The Plain Language Movement has become binding policy of governments of Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. In these jurisdictions, all official documents must be written in a style which is easy to read and must avoid legalese where possible to ensure maximum accessibility. Similarly, the use of plain language is taught and encouraged at university law schools. Many universities have classes teaching plain language.

The Plain Language Movement has not replaced legalese altogether. Lawyers are conscious of the accuracy, certainty and precision of traditional legal language. However, it is important to realize that plain language does not involve abandoning legal terms and replacing them with colloquial expressions. Research has shown that legalese only forms a small percentage of a document – typically around 2%. This leaves 98% of the document available for improvement.

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

There are many instances of plain language replacing legalese with no change to meaning. Match the following expressions from plain language to their legalese synonyms in the table:

then above of below from now on among other things

Plain English means reducing the number of unnecessary words, rewrite the following phrases in plain English, the first is done as an example:

example: for the reason that... because/for

the applicant bears the burden on proving....

at that moment in time...

in combination with …

it is possible that she will be able to …

it is a requirement to establish sufficient evidence to show ….

in the absence of...

acquire knowledge …

as a consequence of...

it is apparent that...

more examples: http://www.translegal.com/drafter/legalese

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/examples/before-and-after.html

Plain English also eliminates doublets and triplets typical for legal English.

Language Practice: Do you know the verbs from Text 1 and Text 2?

a) Arrange the letters into the right order to create the verbs for the definitions (all the verbs appeared in the mentioned texts):

give (someone) a legal right T L E N I E T