The tendency of utilizing plain english in legal english texts in the future

4 CHAPTER 2: PLAIN LANGUAGE, A BRIEF HISTORY OF PLAIN LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN LEGAL ENGLISH TEXTS .... 14 CHAPTER 3: THE APPLICATION OF PLAIN ENGLISH INTO ACTUAL LEGAL TEXTS ...

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF LAW

GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH Major: Legal English

THE TENDENCY OF UTILIZING PLAIN ENGLISH IN LEGAL ENGLISH TEXTS

IN THE FUTURE

Supervisor: Cao Dang Quynh Tram, M.A Student: Nguyen Thi Ha

Student ID: 1652202010019 Class: LE41

Ho Chi Minh City, 2020

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the process of making this dissertation, I have received a lot of support from

my lecturers, my friends, and my family There are no words that can express my appreciation for the help they have given me

Firstly, I wish to thank my supervisor Ms Cao Dang Quynh Tram for her instructions and supports during the time I wrote this thesis She was so patient and kind when helping me complete this thesis even sometimes I failed to follow the timeline properly

Also, as always, I thank my lecturers Mr Nham Thanh Lap and Ms Tran Hoang Tu Linh for their valuable comments on my writing as well as the deep knowledge of English they have taught me

Besides, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Ms Le Thi Xuan Thu, my four-year study counsellor, for her commitments contributed not only to me but to all

Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my family for what they have done throughout the writing process of my thesis and my life in general

Ho Chi Minh City, June 1, 2020

Commission

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 THE STUDY’S NECESSITY 1

1.2 STUDY OBJECTIVES 2

1.3 RESEARCH SUBJECTS 3

1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3

1.5 RESEARCH’S QUESTION: 3

1.6 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS 4

CHAPTER 2: PLAIN LANGUAGE, A BRIEF HISTORY OF PLAIN LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN LEGAL ENGLISH TEXTS 5

2.1 PLAIN LANGUAGE (PLAIN ENGLISH) VERSUS TRADITIONAL LEGAL LANGUAGE? 5

2.2 HISTORY OF PLAIN LANGUAGE 8

2.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAIN LANGUAGE IN LEGAL ENGLISH TEXTS 14

CHAPTER 3: THE APPLICATION OF PLAIN ENGLISH INTO ACTUAL LEGAL TEXTS 17

CHAPTER 4: VIEWS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PLAIN ENGLISH IN LEGAL DOCUMENTS 23

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 29

1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 THE STUDY’S NECESSITY

Legal practice is one of the most developing fields which affect people in various aspects, including family relations (residence, marriage, divorce, adoption), business relations (enterprise registration, trade, franchise, investment), to name just a few In fact, each person is protected by their own national law and their acts must follow it as

a tool to keep up the relation between them and the state By a method applied by almost countries in the world, the competent authorities undertake to enact laws and other legal regulations to govern the social relations and protect rights of citizens and assure that they will abide by the laws Consequently, this process must be performed

in the most appropriate way

Law-abiding citizens are believed to be protected by the law Therefore, in order that each person can become a law-abiding person, it is necessary for the law to be easily complied with

Though ones involved in this area are both professionals and lay people, legal texts are

―unnecessarily lengthy, overwritten, self-conscious and repetitious[, they] consist of lengthy sentences and involved sentence construction[, they] are poorly structured and poorly designed[, they] suffer from elaborate and often unnecessary cross-referencing‖1

That is the reason why the legal system of each country needs to be kept

in the most effective manner, from the way to be expressed to the way to be understood by ordinary people

As a matter of fact, it is difficult to write well even many colleges or university graduates or accountants or doctors or businesspeople sometimes are not good writers

In respect of legal sphere, due to its enormous impacts on people‘s lives, choosing the language to be applied is crucial and needs much consideration

1 Plain English and the Law: The 1987 Report Republished with a New Preface/Victorian Law Reform

Commission, p 8, available at:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SibpolPC8ZlhOhpm970RUINBTd7eGYPX?fbclid=IwAR0zSf8UXyjDY ay3LgEcgInYxPTD2xLby1WozC77MiicSEgIkCjygoW2meo

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The idea of substituting legalese for plain language2, not a whole new idea, to be used

in legal texts can be worth considering since ―[the] use of plain English saves everyone time and money and makes the law directly relevant to those who are affected by it‖3 This tendency has already been supported and started in many countries while there is still controversy from others‘ perspectives which argue for the use of traditional legal language Having said that, opinions on the change to language used in legal texts give

a doubt to the inadequacy in the traditional writing style and the demand to find a

"magic bullet"4 in using an appropriate legal language In order words, if the traditional legal language satisfies the expects of all involving parties including both the drafters and the recipients, there will be no chance for plain language to arise in this area

Whether or not plain language is worth efforts is hard to confirm; however, the propensity toward the use of plain English will be clarified in this dissertation

1.2 STUDY OBJECTIVES

This thesis aims to provide a general knowledge of the plain language, or more specifically plain language‘s definition and history in some English-speaking countries Besides, an approach to the application of plain language into actual legal texts is also included in this writing By following the plain language movement, some professionals‘ viewpoints will be presented to provide readers with general views on the problem of legal drafting language Finally, with all the information in relation to the past and present of plain English emergence, the main purpose of this dissertation

is to access to the tendency of using plain English in legal English texts in the future and to predict whether or not it will replace traditional legal language to the whole extent

2 ―Plain language‖ and ―plain English‖ can be used or mentioned interchangeably because the research subjects

of this thesis are completely in English-speaking countries

3 John Pease, Plain English: A solution for effective communication, 9 November 2012, available at:

http://acla.acc.com/documents/item/1065

4 ―Magic bullet‖ means ―a fast and effective solution to a serious problem‖ See Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, available at: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/magic-bullet

 Analyzing and synthesizing method: Presenting information from different academic resources, including legal Acts, regulations, articles, law reviews, news, and the like to analyze how much plain language is used, how effective plain language is, and common plain English words is used to replace the traditional ones Actual legal contents were discussed before drawing any conclusion of each matters presented

 Historical method: Presenting different historical piece of information in documents about plain language to mention the emergence of plain language as well as its development process

1.5 RESEARCH’S QUESTION:

The question arising from this thesis is the potential substitution of traditional legal language for plain English in the future To be specific, this thesis will draw a general picture of the utility and comments on the plain English in legal texts, leading to the prediction of the future of plain language

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1.6 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2: PLAIN LANGUAGE, A BRIEF HISTORY OF PLAIN

LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN LEGAL ENGLISH TEXTS

CHAPTER 3: THE APPLICATION OF PLAIN ENGLISH INTO ACTUAL

LEGAL TEXTS

CHAPTER 4: VIEWS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PLAIN ENGLISH IN

LEGAL DOCUMENTS

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

5

CHAPTER 2: PLAIN LANGUAGE, A BRIEF HISTORY OF

PLAIN LANGUAGE AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN LEGAL

ENGLISH TEXTS

2.1 PLAIN LANGUAGE (PLAIN ENGLISH) VERSUS TRADITIONAL

LEGAL LANGUAGE?

PLAIN LANGUAGE

According to the website of Oxford Learner Dictionary, ―in plain English‖ means

―simply and clearly expressed, without using technical language‖5

Based on the report ―Plain English: A solution for effective communication‖ which was presented by Professor John Pease, plain English ―refers to language that is clear, direct, and straightforward It is language that avoids obscurity, inflated vocabulary and convoluted sentence construction It is language that allows readers to concentrate

on the message conveyed, not on the difficulty of the language used Plain English uses the right word for the right occasion and does not use unnecessary words‖6

Legal texts containing plain English do not mean applying wholly a set of ordinary, simple, daily-used English or using solely your simplifying language However, utilizing plain English is defined as a writing style that is ―clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience‖.7 In other words, it is not necessary without jargons, plain English

is ―clear English – it is simple and direct but not simplistic‖.8 In any type of legal documents, the concentration must be giving ―a cooperative, motivated person a good

5 https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/plain_1?q=plain

6 John Pease, Plain English: A solution for effective communication, 9 November 2012 -

http://acla.acc.com/documents/item/1065

7 Plain Writing Act of 2010 (United States), October 1, 2010, passed Congress, section 3(3)

8 John Pease, Plain English: A solution for effective communication, 9 November 2012 -

http://acla.acc.com/documents/item/1065

TRADITIONAL LEGAL LANGUAGE (LEGALESE)

Legalese, on the contrary, is a technical term that refers to ―a style of writing that is wordy, complex, legal and shaped by history‖10, this writing style has become a distinctive dialect of those involved in fields of law As defined in Oxford Learner Dictionary, ―legalese‖ means ―the sort of language used in legal documents that is difficult to understand‖11 Despite being ―a block to communication with clients‖12, it has been still included as a main course for teaching law students and considered as a powerful ―tool‖ of lawyers during their legal practices

Mentioning again the report ―Plain English: A solution for effective communication‖13

by John Pease, one of the theories related to the rise of tradition legal language was since the Norman invasion of England in 1066 At that time, the conquerors downplayed English language, and the French was the dominant language to be taught

to their subject This act did not only give a change to the British‘s everyday communication but also to the contemporary legal system and the governing bodies The Norman conquerors would like to achieve the effectiveness of business

9

Martin Cutts, The Oxford Guide to Plain English, p 11,

https://books.google.com.vn/books?id=9SA0UKfruwwC&pg=PR11&lpg=PR11&dq=%22cooperative,+motivat ed+person+a+good+chance%22&source=bl&ots=I7Vf86PtTN&sig=ACfU3U1fp4yGjDcqzg_XSM6YfFt2s- B5Lw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiRr_yR_8noAhVRBKYKHXFUArsQ6AEwAXoECAwQKA#v=onepage

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transactions; however, they also wanted to make their language prevailing Therefore, the result was to put English, Norman words and Latin (if necessary) together since they could not remove entirely the original language in the contemporary society Then an assorted language system was formed with an complex language system Here are some typical words taken as examples to show the differences among three languages:

The old English

by the complexity of language use

14 John Pease, Plain English: A solution for effective communication, 9 November 2012, available at:

http://acla.acc.com/documents/item/1065

Over time, due to the confusion arising from the use of legal language, one of the initial efforts mentioning the utility of Plain English was Pleading in English Act 1362 (also known as ―the Statute of Pleading‖), an Act of England‘s Parliament However, following The Anglicisation of English Law by Gillian Gillies, ―the Statute of Pleading could never have signaled complete triumph of the English language as it did not require the translation of the law to English generally, but only purported to change the language of oral pleadings‖.15

This showed an incomplete attempt when the statute only focused on the spoken aspects, not to mention that this Act was written in French

Prior to the Restoration in 1660 in England, another endeavor to improve the readability of legal documents was an Act of Parliament of England passed under the reign of Cromwell in November 1650.16 In particular, it was designed to translate ―all the Report-Books of the Resolutions of Judges, and other Books of the Law of England, shall be Translated into the English Tongue‖.17 Unfortunately, this legal regulation was not supported by most of legal professionals and was revoked shortly afterwards

17 'November 1650: An Act for turning the Books of the Law, and all Process and Proceedings in Courts of

Justice, into English.', in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, ed C H Firth and R S Rait (London, 1911), pp 455-456 British History Online,http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-

interregnum/pp455-456

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Regarding ―Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act‖ passed by Parliament of Great Britain in 1730, this Act was considered as the ―second ostensible push to transform legal language in England‖18, ―required that English [became] both the language of pleadings and of the written record of cases in the law courts of the United Kingdom

of Great Britain‖19 With the purpose of making English prevailing over French and Latin within language of the law, this was an effort to increase the clarity of legal language at that time

From the above information, by centuries, the demand to create a less complex legal language seems to be undeniable

To continue with the United Kingdom, Renton Committee Report in 1975 with contents in relation to the improvement of legislation drafting, which partially proposed:

My Lords, the solutions that are proposed are broadly of two kinds, relating first to the technique of drafting itself and, secondly, to the form and layout

of Acts of Parliament As to the technique of drafting, no doubt we all share the view of the noble and learned Lord that the language of legislation

Four years later, the Plain English Campaign (―PEC‖), which was founded by director Chrissie Maher OBE, aimed to remove difficulties caused by legalese and overly complicated legal regulations By ―publicly shredded hundreds of official documents

in Parliament Square, London‖,21 Chrissie Maher OBE had left a landmark impact on the government at that time This campaign has been widespread and has achieved certain success, in particular: ―[Their] Crystal Mark now appears on more than 23,000

18 Richard Powell, Language Choice in Postcolonial Law: Lessons from Malaysia‟s Bilingual Legal System, 1st

ed 2020, published by Singapore: Springer, p 234

10

documents worldwide Launched in 1990, and the first mark of its kind, the Crystal Mark is [now] used by over 1600 organizations‖.22 This independent orgnization has provided the public, enterprises as well as governmental authorities with professional services regarding the plain language redrafting regarding different types of legal document

Also in the UK in 1983, Clarity, a worldwide organization established by legal professionals who were ―committed to promoting plain legal language‖23, ―is now one

of the major plain language organisations, which, while retaining a focus on legal writing, has considerably broadened its interests, and is now one of the leading international plain language organisations, with a journal, also called Clarity.‖24

In 2009, the Local Government Association of the UK (―LGA‖) drawn up a list of 200 jargon words suggesting that ―Council leaders‖ should avoid using such words in order that their staff can communicate effectively to the public The LGA‘s banned list recommends some substitutions, ―such as "measuring" for the civil servants [favorite]

"benchmarking", "idea" for "seedbed", "delay" for "slippage" and "buy" for

"procure"‖.25

IN THE U.S

Meanwhile, in the United States, it is professor Fred Rodell, who is famous for his opposition to traditional legal language as well as legal professionals In 1936, he published a critique against traditional legal language with a strong, scathing opposition expressed in a simple and straightforward style:

There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing One is its style The other is its content That, I think, about covers the ground And though

22

The Plain English Campaign, website, http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/about-us.html

23 Clarity, website, https://clarity-international.net/about/

24 Johanna Stewart, Plain language: From 'movement' to 'profession', Australian Journal of Communication,

Vol 37, No 2, 2010, p 52,

https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/docview/883650390/fulltextPDF/F678F74894D9461APQ/1?accountid=14205

25 Councils get banned jargon list, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7948894.stm

11

it is in the law reviews that the most highly regarded legal literature-and I

by no means except those fancy rationalizations of legal action called judicial opinions-is regularly embalmed, it is in the law reviews that a pennyworth of content is most frequently concealed beneath a pound of so- called style The average law review writer is peculiarly able to say nothing with an air of great importance When I Used to read law reviews, I used constantly to be reminded of an elephant trying to swat a fly 26

Following that, three years after, the professor kept on his attempt with the release of the book named ―Woe Unto You, Lawyers!‖27

, in which he stated his proposal relating the amendment that any ―law that means something definite and tangible in relation to human affairs can be written so that its meaning is plain for all to read‖28 However, it seemed that not many law practitioners supported the idea of Fred Rodell

Since the 1970s, several states in the U.S have ratified some plain English regulations and the document that ―[marked] the coming-of-age of the plain language movement

in the United States [was] the plain language consumer loan note formally launched on 1 January 1975 by First National City Bank (now Citibank).‖ 29

Influenced by Citibank‘s note, the first state statute regarding the need of plain language of New York - the New York‘s Plain Language Law (also called the

―Sullivan Law‖) was taken into effect in November 1978 In order to protect consumers‘ rights and obligations when entering into transactions similar to the goal of the promissory note of Citibank, the law said that:

Every written agreement … for the lease of space to be occupied for residential purposes, for the lease of personal property to be used primarily

12

for personal, family or household purposes or to which a consumer is a party and the money, property or service which is the subject of the transaction is primarily for personal, family or household purposes must be:

1 Written in a clear and coherent manner using words with common and every day meanings;

These early patterns supporting for plain language played an important role in raising awareness of enterprises and the government about the necessity of easy-to-read and easy-to-use communication Remarkably, a governmental document regulating the use

of plain English in federal regulations was the Executive Order 12044: ―Improving Government Regulations‖ signed by President Jimmy Carter on March 23, 1978 According to this new order, ―Regulations shall be as simple and clear as possible They shall achieve legislative goals effectively and efficiently‖.31

In 1998, there was even an award called ―No Gobbledygook Award‖ and Marthe Kent

of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was the first one to receive this plain English award

Also in 1998, the Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, which was released by President William Jefferson Clinton, included a subject of ―Plain Language in Government Writing‖ By these documents, the President Clinton would like to express an idea of ―[making] the Government more responsive, accessible, and understandable in its communications with the public… documents may include letters, forms, notices, and instructions.‖32 This notice by the government agencies shows a need to make documents enacted by them easy for the public to read and understand

30 New York General Obligations Law, Section 5-702, available at:

https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/5-702

31

Executive Order 12044, Federal Register Vol 43, p 12661, March 24, 1978

32 William J Clinton, Memorandum of June 1, 1998, Plain Language in Government Writing, The White House,

Washington, June 3, 1998

13

More significantly, the Plain Writing Act of 2010 which was signed by President Barack Obama was designed to impose a regulation with the content to ―improved the effectiveness and accountability of Federal agencies to the public by promoting clear Government communication that the public can understand and use33.‖ This Act was

an outstanding enactment regarding the effort to promote the utility of plain language within governmental legal drafting

More recently, in 2014, the government of Minnesota – a state of the U.S.,signed the Executive Order 14-07, in which the governor ordered their state offices and agencies

to comply some principle as follows:

• Use language commonly understood by the public;

• Write in short and complete sentences;

• Present information in a format that is find and understand; and

easy-to-• Clearly state directions and deadlines to the audience 34

Overall, these theories provide a clear and apparent view on the tendency of using

―Plain Language‖ in legal texts throughout the history This also proves that the concept of ―Plain Language‖ has flashed since the past

33

PUBLIC LAW 111–274—OCT 13, 2010, available at: https://www.fda.gov/media/84926/download

34 Executive Order 14-07 Implementing Plain Language in the Executive Branch, Executive Department, State

of Minnesota, March 4, 2014

of technical information to multiple audiences, here are my recommendations:

● Attract your readers‘ attention

● Use a clear, simple and concise writing style

● Arrange the document logically

Legal texts traditionally contain gobbledygook35, the language seems to be designed only for experts and lawyers rather than the other object – ordinary people who are also involved

In today‘s world, when people are concerned with the laws more often than ever, the need to create reader-friendly legal documents become crucial in order that each individual can understand and know their rights as well as their obligations correctly

It leads to the consideration of the plain language instead of traditional legal language

To layman, knowing laws is the main point to create a better society, therefore, it is necessary for laws to be written in plain language to help them approach legal knowledge Contract, for example, is another kind of legal documents which sometimes cause problem to the contracting parties who just partially know their rights and duties specified in such documents due to the specialized language drafted by the professional ones

In this era of commercial services, consumers involved in purchasing contracts are highly increasing, followed by a higher expectation of assurance in the relevant

15

relationship During the process of drafting commercial contracts, ―enhancing reading ease may also inflate consumer expectations with regard to the performance levels of the professional counterparty These heightened expectations in turn can influence the consumer‘s willingness to engage in conflict when such expectations are not met.‖36

Besides, nothing is more important than to be completely aware of what we are involved in Of course, these texts specify and regulate civil relations among individuals, organizations and define conditions as well as standards of mutual behaviors to get desired performances from each party ―When organizations realize how plain language can benefit them, both economically as well as in improved consumer relations, they will be motivated to adopt plain language into their legal writing.‖37

In respect of law study, students major in legal sphere are also struggling with traditional legal language both in school and in internship It takes a lot of time and effort to gain enough knowledge on technical legal language to understand Not only fields of law but any majors have its own kind of language For instance, in medical fields we have medical terms, in engineering technology we have technical terminologies, in computer science we have programming language, to name just a few However, not all of the mentioned fields are directly connected with its audiences like in the case of law, here are mentioning an aspect of the application of legal texts to the public

So why should law students learn legalese during their study but in real practices, they have to use plain language to explain or communicate with their clients? Not to mention that even judges also need to master in explaining in plain and simple wording style so that parties in a case can completely get the decisions supposed to be binding on them

36 Willem H Van Boom & Pieter Desmet & Mark Van Dam, "If It's Easy to Read, It's Easy to Claim" The

Effect of the Readability of Insurance Contracts on Consumer Expectations and Conflict Behaviour, the article

published by Journal of Consumer Policy, Jun 2016, Vol.39(2), p 195-196

Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10603-016-9317-9

37

Peggy Gale Bivins, Implementing Plain Language Into Legal Documents: The Technical Communicator‟s

Role, B.A University of Central Florida, 2005, available at:

http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0002022/Bivins_Peggy_G_200805_MA.pdf

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CHAPTER 3: THE APPLICATION OF PLAIN ENGLISH INTO

ACTUAL LEGAL TEXTS

In this part, we will take one step towards how plain language has been applied to enacted legal documents

3.1 IN THE UK

Based on a study of Catalina Riera from University of Alicante, the researcher has made a comparison of two different Acts of the British Parliament38 The principle was that the enactment of the first one had to be before the Plain English Movements emerging in the UK, whereas the other was enacted after the Movement After considering the UK legislation from 1802 to 2015, it was the Water Acts with the first version in 1973 and the second version in 2014 Some significant improvements were:

● The reduction of the word ―shall‖: Accounting for 1.5% of the total number

of words in the 1973 Act, ―shall” in the 2014 Act was merely 0.005% The

table below shows how this favored word of traditional writing style was replaced by other alternatives:

Table 1: Evolution of use of alternative modals to shall between 1973 and 2014

Catalina Riera, Plain English in Legal Language: A Comparative Study of Two UK Acts of Parliament,

Alicante Journal of English Studies 28 (2015), available at:

https://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/54183/1/RAEI_28_08.pdf

18

● The decrease of ―shall not” and the rise of ―may not”: The utility of ―shall

not‖ in the former Act was dominant compared with ―may not‖, at 0.12% and 0.006% respectively The situation was reversed in the later Act, in

which ―shall not‖ appeared once while “may not‖ increased to 0.10%

● The disappearance of prepositional adverbs: ―therein‖, ―thereon‖,

―thereunder‖, ―thereof‖, ―therewith‖, ―thereafter‖, ―thereby‖, ―hereby‖, etc., are archaic words found in 1973 Act ―In sharp contrast but unsurprisingly, the analysis reveals that in the 2014 Act there is not a single case of prepositional adverbs.‖39

● The change to passive structure: this study found that there was not a big gap in the frequency of passives between the 1973 Act and the one in 2014 However, the type of passives was worth mentioning Specifically, with the previous Act, ―the passives with shall prevail, together with the present simple passive and the present perfect passive‖.40 Meanwhile, ‗in the 2014 Act, the construction is/are to be + participle acquires considerable relevance, together with passives with may and must‘.41

To sum up this first application case, it may serve to note the evolution of plain English has been made in the 2014 Act, though other characteristics continue to follow the traditional legal writing style (For the original sections from the Acts, see APPENDIX 1)

19

3.2 IN THE U.S

Here we mention Professor Joseph Kimble, who joined in the process of restyling the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence, moreover, he also won two prestigious Burton Awards for this work In his article ―How to mangle court rules and jury institutions‖42

, some extracts of original procedure rules and the redrafted ones were display to indicate the effect of rewriting traditional legal rules on comprehensibility

The contents in the table below follow the information written in the Kimble‘s article:

―shall not utilize that grand jury

material for any purpose other than

assisting‖

―may use that information only to assist‖

―Nothing in this rule shall preclude

the taking of the deposition, orally or

upon written questions, or the use of

a deposition, by agreement of the

parties with the consent of the court.‖

―The parties may by agreement take and use a deposition with the court‘s consent.‖

42 Joseph Kimble, How to mangle court rules and jury institutions, The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing,

Annual, 2001, Vol.8, available at:

44bc-b7fd-e550a0aced8c%40pdc-v-sessmgr05

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=4387e020-26c3-20

In general, those minor changes to the old version did not alter the meaning but improving the readability The redrafted texts removed the archaic legalism ―such‖ and

―shall‖, which were unnecessarily used in order to understand the information

Since the staff and managers in U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (―SEC‖) acknowledge the impact of plain English on the effectiveness of communication quality between them and the public, ―A Plain English Handbook: How to create clear SEC disclosure documents‖43 was published by the Commission with a corporate author Office of Investor Education and Assistance in August 1998 This handbook provides investors with well-established techniques for drafting clear and informative disclosure documents using plain English, of course all the legal requirements must be met before filing documents with the SEC

By recognizing some practical problems clients have commonly encountered with this type of documents, namely long sentences, passive voice, superfluous words, legal and financial jargons, numerous defined terms, to name just a few, this guidebook gave some solutions to eliminate those impediments

The contents in the table below follow the information written in the Handbook:

You may revoke your proxy and reclaim your right

to vote up to and including the day

of the meeting by following the directions on page

43 U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, A Plain English Handbook: How to create clear SEC disclosure

documents, August 1998, Available at: https://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf