{"id":722,"date":"2010-12-20T15:22:57","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T20:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=722"},"modified":"2012-03-19T15:21:11","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T19:21:11","slug":"so-why-are-legal-documents-such-lousy-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"So why are legal documents such lousy reads?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2013 It says, “The party of the first part shall be known in this contract…as the party of the first part.” How do you like that? That’s pretty neat, eh?
\n\u2013 No, it’s no good.
\n\u2013 What’s the matter with it?
\n\u2013 I don’t know. Let’s hear it again.
\n\u2013 “The party of the first part shall be known in this contract…as the party of the first part.”
\n\u2013 Sounds a little better this time.
\n\u2013 It grows on you. Would you like to hear it once more?
\n\u2013 Just the first part.
\n\u2013 What? “The party of the first part”?
\n\u2013 No. The first part of “the party of the first part.”
\n\u2013 It says, “The first part of the party of the first part…shall be known in this contract as the first part of the party…\u201d
\n\u2013 Why should we quarrel about this? We’ll take it out.
\n\u2013 Yeah. It’s too long anyhow.
\n\u2013 Now what do we got left?
\n\u2013 I got about a foot and a half.
\n\u2013 A Night at the Opera<\/em>, screenplay by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, from a story by James Kevin McGuinness, with additional dialogue and drafts by Al Boasberg, Buster Keaton, Robert Pirosh, George Seaton and probably the entire Marx mishpocha and anyone else hanging around the set.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, while I was still working for lawyers, I entered the sloppy sanctum of my friend, \u201cJudge\u201d Goldfarber, a profoundly intelligent appellate lawyer who\u2019d clerked for two Supreme Court justices. I plunked myself down in a chair and asked him why so many boilerplate legal documents were so miserably incomprehensible.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the gist of what \u201cJudge\u201d told me: legal documents are a series of accretions, starting with the language within the original U.S. Constitution. So if a discovery demand, for instance, was successful in the late 19th century, it got passed on and up and around law offices through the ensuing centuries until it was as if carved into stone.<\/p>\n

Although lawyers of course accommodate legal shifts within the old documents (the \u201caccretion\u201d part), the language remains calcified \u2013 partially because most lawyers get nervous about changing something, even an incomprehensible phrase, that\u2019s had centuries of imprimatur. In fact, lawyers call each other and ask, \u201cHey, do you have a good omnibus motion hanging around?\u201dand then just use that \u201cborrowed\u201d document as a template for their own omnibus motion.<\/p>\n

Lawyers are generally not creative, daring people and many are not good writers.<\/p>\n

I, as outsider, think there\u2019s an additional reason. Throughout human history, the man who could read and understand words had great power over men who were illiterate. Only someone who understood its language could interpret the bible as, say, the word of god, and use his interpretation to wield power over people who couldn\u2019t read and dispute him.<\/p>\n

Those who translated Greek, Aramaic or Latin into the vernacular of their regions \u2013 like heroic William Tyndale, a priest who first transcribed the bible into English \u2013 were persecuted, even put to death. The church and its loyal educated aristocrats ferociously held close to their chests the exclusive rights to the written word.<\/p>\n

So if legal language remains arcane to all but lawyers, lawyers own the Law and control those of us who don\u2019t understand what they\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about the power of the word.<\/p>\n

At the time I asked for \u201cJudge\u2019s\u201d dissertation on legal writing, I was myself\u00a0 working on a discovery demand and chomping at the bit to update and clarify the writing. \u201cJudge\u201d pointed out that the discovery document I was using as a fundament was so dated it didn\u2019t even demand documents produced on computers. Geez. I added a demand for e-mail, et cetera, and translated the whole thing into plain English.<\/p>\n

I signed our Proprietary Lease in 1988, before I worked for and understood lawyers. So it was understandable \u2013 albeit reprehensibly dumb \u2013 that I failed to comprehend what little of it I\u2019d skimmed through.<\/p>\n

That’s my excuse, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a bravura quote from the Marx Brothers, I begin an interesting take from a legal genius on why we non-lawyers find it so impossible to read legal documents. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1175],"tags":[149,32,4,15,30,151,148,20,150,152,3,147],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-facts-of-life","tag-discovery-documents","tag-how-lawyers-drive-clients-crazy","tag-interpreting-lawyers","tag-law-and-the-bible","tag-lawyers","tag-legal-language","tag-omnibus-motions","tag-proprietary-leases","tag-the-marx-brothers","tag-the-power-of-the-word","tag-understanding-lawsuits","tag-william-tyndale"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t