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Legal week, Lucid language
Author : em-admin
Posted : 30 / 10 / 08
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Plain language need not mean dumbing down. Clear, well-drafted advice makes things easier for clients, raising the chance that they will call on you more frequently.
The moment you become overly reliant on a thesaurus or get carried away with archaic terms is the moment you risk losing your reader. This is not to say you cannot use technical language or clarify your points, it just means thinking of your reader at all times and making sure you communicate difficult or complex topics clearly. It is all about readability, not just the vocabulary you use. That means organising the structure so that it is logical and straightforward.
Complex legal principles are not always easy to convey, but easy reading doesn’t necessarily have to mean extra-hard writing. The truth is that legal documents do not have to be written in language which is full of jargon and difficult for the average person to understand. The tide is turning, as law firms such as Nabarro, SJ Berwin, DLA Piper and CMS Cameron McKenna recognise the value of better writing skills and commission specialist training programmes. In fact, Nabarro recently launched a high-profile, firm-wide campaign ” ‘Clarity Matters’ ” to simplify the way its lawyers write.
Here are some of the most common errors made by lawyers when writing ” and tips on remedying them.
The ‘herein’ and ‘aforesaid’ are unnecessary and make the sentence sound archaic and stilted.
The author of the first example is more than a little disgruntled. But the message is hidden behind too much flowery language. The second suggestion gets to the heart of the problem and makes the meaning clear. Note that the passive voice is used in the second example to soften the blow. You don’t always have to use the active voice, just make sure that if you do use it, you do so consciously.
Possession is a noun, whereas ‘possesses’ is a verb. Verbs create action in the sentence which moves the pace along and helps keep the reader’s interest. ‘We believe’ has also been taken out as the sentence already asserts the writer’s belief.
The first example doesn’t tell us who investigated the role, creating a very impersonal tone. Using the active voice makes the writing easier to read. It also forces you to say who or what is taking the action, as the second example shows, making the sentence more specific and connecting the reader to what is happening. Of course, the passive voice can be useful where the intention is to obfuscate or create distance.
When a sentence runs past three lines, you know you are in trouble. In the first example, there are also too many brackets and too much information squeezed in one space, which can become confusing. The second example takes out all the brackets and sets everything out much more clearly.
Long sentences are often the result of fuzzy thinking. So, the first step is to ensure that you think before you write. That means never using the writing process to clarify your thoughts. Consider the main subject areas and issues you need to cover first. Questions are a useful prompt. Then use each heading to brainstorm all the points related to that subject. Knowing what you want to say before you write gives you a fighting chance of building a logical structure.
The first step is to think about your audience and avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Use technical language in order to be precise. At each stage pick the best word to communicate your ideas and thoughts. The benchmark test is to think about whether another lawyer or layperson (depending on your audience) would be able to understand instantly what you mean. If not, it is time to go back to the computer and tweak it. It can also help if you try not to think of it as legal writing, but merely writing, which simply aims to communicate effectively.
Punchy prose saves time and money and is far more likely to persuade the reader. It may mean a bit of extra effort, but it could well pay dividends.
Robert Ashton is chief executive of Emphasis, the specialist business writing trainers.
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