Lawyers can lean on plain language (in fact, judges wish they would)
By Stephen Howat | 4-minute read
Plain language is for everyone, especially lawyers and judges. Legal documents can be complex and high stakes, so your readers won’t thank you for making them harder to understand than they need to be. This blog offers strategies for clear legal communication and explains why they are worth it.
Think about your readers
What: Plain language is more than simple wording. It’s also how you prioritise the information your readers most need to know. The order you choose will vary depending on whether you’re drafting an advice, a memo or a contract.
To help you decide what goes where, the legal communication ISO standard says to ‘keep supplementary information separate’. Drafters should move content that is not relevant to most readers to the end of the document, in an appendix or supporting information section.
Why: Clients want the answers to their questions upfront, while managers signing contracts need to find and implement specific provisions without having to hunt for the information.
A reader-focused structure is quicker to read and shows clients you respect their time. This respect contributes to a strong client relationship, which means trust, repeat business and recommendations.
Aim for clarity and precision will follow
What: People expect that they can trust legal professionals. They also expect legal professionals to communicate in quite a complex way. Yet when professionals cloak expertise in complex language to appear credible, it confuses clients and undermines trust.
If you can distinguish between good and bad complexity, you’ll be able to write more clearly, without losing precision or nuance. For example, you might have to keep terms of art, such as ‘respondeat superior’. But you can absolutely replace ‘pursuant to’ with ‘under’ and ‘quantum’ with ‘amount’.
Curious about how to avoid the hallmarks of legalese: uncommon jargon, convoluted sentences, passive voice and non-standard capitalisation? Please read our blog: Banish legalese with these tips.
One organisation that successfully eliminated bad complexity was the Royal Bank of Scotland. It simplified its standard supply contract and took it from 18,000 words to about 6,000 without compromising legal meaning.
Why: A clearer contract like this means:
- readers make fewer calls to ask questions
- team members spend less time interpreting and explaining
- negotiations move faster (one study showed a plain language lease took 3 weeks to negotiate compared to 3 months for its legalese equivalent).
Consider plain language training
What: We’re not here to tell you how to do your job. We’re here to help individuals, teams and organisations communicate clearly with each other and clients.
We’ve worked with legal professionals around Australia, such as the State Solicitor’s Office Western Australia.
Depending on how much time you have and what aspect of plain language you’re curious about, we have a workshop for you. Check out Plain Language for Lawyers (3.5 hours), or one of our express legal tutorials (1 hour) that covers:
- reviewing other people’s writing objectively and efficiently
- deciding what is key
- conveying the logic of your advice clearly
- structuring advices for time-poor readers
- assessing the structure of transaction documents
- using headings to add scan value
- setting the right tone
- boosting readability
- activating passive verbs
- avoiding vague verbs.
Our legal writing training attracts CPD points (unless you are registered in Western Australia). Need more information? Contact us.
Why: Research shows that plain language:
- saves everyone’s time and money
- increases compliance from your readers
- reduces the need for your team to write multiple explanatory documents
- reduces litigation and liability claims.
What lawyers say about our workshops: ‘The examples made it easy to see how I can use plain language in my work. I like that I can keep the training materials and refer back to them.’
What now: Curious about making plain language your default? Our pro bono resources include:
- a list of words and phrases to avoid
- an ebook with practical advice about writing for neurodivergent readers
- live and on-demand webinars on a range of topics, from AI to championing plain language at work
- our LinkedIn page where we share the latest communication trends and insights.
