Justin Schwartz wrote:
>>
>
> Legalese is awful. It's not even English. But there were striitings in
> America to make it more like English quite a while ago. The Legal
> realists, like Jerome Frank and Thurman Arnold, were quite good writers,
> following in the manner of their master Justice Holmes, who was a great
> writer. Judge Posner is a follower here, and a fine writer himself.
>
> jks
>
I think it is great that legalese be eliminated as far as possible. As
of course since a lot is just jargon, that can be a great distance. But
I suspect that there is a limit to how far this is possible.
Can contracts, for example, can ever be written in as simple English as
an ordinairy description? Suppose I want to have the inside walls of my
house painted. Well, this nice one sentence description tells you what I
have in mind. But if I hire a painter I don't know personally there are
all sorts of things that have to be taken into account. To protect me it
must specify that a decent grade of paint be used (and define this
somehow), that my furniture, carpet, and everything not to be painted be
protected, that any damage done be repaired. Similarly the painter needs
protection; she wants assurance that these things are not defined so
broadly that she can do a great job and still not be paid based upon
some technical flaw. And there weill probably need to be some
pharseology to assure her that if I just turn around and don't pay for
no reason that she can get a lien against my house. (I think this is
built into the law somewhere rather than needing to be specified in a
particular contract - but the point remains; whether in a contract or a
law you some of the specifications have to be technical.) Also a decent
contract has to allow for contingencies; if this happens that this is
remeedy, but only up a this point; otherwise that is the remedy. What is
comes down to is that a contract has to allow for someone setting out to
interpet it in bad faith. A law has to try and allow for the same
possiblity of attempts bad faith interpetation - someone looking for
loopholes. There is no 100% guarantee against this; even if there are
no valid points someone can always raise an invalid one for nusiance
value. Thus I don't think you will be able to write all laws and
contracts in simple English; the effort of protecting against other
lawyers will prevent it if nothing else. Though I'm sure that it can be
done a lot of the time.
