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David Downing, responding to my somewhat tongue-in-cheek desciption of
legal English as being incomprehensible to non-lawyers, responded:
<<One thing that helps, to some extent, is understanding the overall
rationale for legal English. In a legal document, everything must be
made 100% explicit.>>
While this is the commonly reported justification, it's disingenous at
best and evidence of widespread incompetence among lawyers at worst.
(I'd suggest that the true situation lies somewhere in between:
lawyers, like any other professionals including us, come in a wide
range of skills and ethical outlooks. The results of their work vary
accordingly.) The number of lawsuits based on unclear, imprecise, and
willfully misinterpreted wording boggles the mind. If the language were
so clear, there'd be no need for jurisprudence: laws and contracts
would speak for themselves, and judges and lawyers wouldn't have to
rely on the opinions of former colleagues over highly stylized
interpretations of wordings.
Harsh though that is, I'm not writing to dismiss the entire profession
of law as a con game and all lawyers as con artists. Law is not a con
game and lawyers aren't con men--the goal of legal language is indeed
to produce something comprehensive, and lawyers are generally more
interested in avoiding misunderstandings than in profiting from them.
But the results suggest that the legal profession as a whole could
benefit from a large number of skilled editors.
Lest I be accused of hubris, I hasten to point out that good though my
writing generally is, I've long since stopped counting the number of
times editors have saved my bacon. And a quick perusal of the techwr-l
archives will reveal ample evidence that I have clay feet like any
other writer. The bottom line is that any writer, including a lawyer,
will benefit from a good editor's work, and the more complex the work,
the more they'll benefit.
--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
