posted by Wayne Schiess at 7:44 AM
Legalwriting.net
Wayne Schiess's legal-writing blog. Home is here: Legalwriting.net
Monday, September 10, 2007
previous posts
- 70s song lyric of the week
- Bullets: more advice
- Advice for using bullets
- Tell me about the case . . .
- Long email messages: ease the reader's way
- Begin well
- Prepositions, ending with
- Self-indulgent blather, part 3
- Self-indulgent blather: My two worlds, part 2
- Self-indulgent blather: My two worlds, part 1
Wayne's books
[Plain language] has a bad name among some lawyers. This is usually because they don't understand enough about it to judge it properly. --Michele M. Asprey, Plain Language for Lawyers 11 (2d ed., Federation Press 1996).
A related bonus of a plain language style is the potential for reducing mistakes. Traditional legal language tends to hide inconsistencies and ambiguities. Errors are harder to find in dense and convoluted prose. Removing legalese helps lay bare any oversights in the original. --Peter Butt & Richard Castle, Modern Legal Drafting: A Guide to Using Clearer Language 89 (Cambridge U. Press 2001).
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