Legal Quotes
During the First World War, Sir Roger Casement was charged
with treason. But the question was: Did the law apply
to acts of treason performed abroad? The answer depended
on whether there was a pair of commas in the relevant
section. The Act was so old that this was not clear, but
the judges went down to the Public Record Office and looked
up the old parchment Statute rolls, where they found markings
that they interpreted as punctuation. As a result Sir
Roger Casement was almost literally "hanged by a comma."
The moral of the story is: do not neglect punctuation.
Dr. Michael Arnheim, Contract Vetting
Lawyers who use plain language know it doesn't just make
good sense, it makes good cents.
Christopher Balmford, Words and Beyond, Australia.
Inertia, incompetence, status, power, cost, and risk
are a formidable set of motivations to keep legalese.
Their tenacity should not be underestimated. One observation
must be made, however. These motivations lack any intellectually
or socially acceptable rationale; they amount to assertions
of naked self-interest.
Robert W. Benson, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School.
A sentence should never be cruel and unusual.
William C. Burton, Chairman, The Burton Awards for
Legal Achievement
But do not give it to a lawyer's clerk to write, for
they use a legal hand that Satan himself will not understand.
Cervantes
The price of clarity, of course, is that the clearer
the document the more obvious its substantive deficiencies.
For the lazy or dull, this price may be too high.
Reed Dickerson, Professor of Law, Indiana University.
The common language of the law is not the product of
necessity, precedent, convention, or economy, but it is
the product of sloth, confusion, hurry, cowardice, ignorance,
neglect, and cultural poverty.
Judge Lynn N. Hughes, U.S. District Court, Houston,
Texas.
[Plain language] is, or should be, every bit as accurate
and precise as traditional legal writing. It is clearer
— considerably clearer. It is usually shorter and
faster. It is strongly preferred by readers. It would
greatly improve the image of lawyers.
Professor Joseph Kimble, Answering the Critics of
Plain Language
The language of law must not be foreign to the ears of
those who are to obey it.
Learned Hand
Most legal writing is atrocious. Fred Rodell, Dean of
Yale Law School before most of us were born, had it right
when he said, "There are two things wrong with most legal
writing. One is its style. The other is its content."
This was in a fascinating article, Goodbye to Law
Reviews, one which should be assigned reading for
all law students.
Judge Mark P. Painter, Legal Writing 201
The lawyer's greatest weapon is clarity, and its whetstone
is succinctness.
Judge Prettyman
Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly,
a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture
of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not
a safe basis for a democracy.
Michael Shanks, former chairman of the National Consumer
Council, England
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