Ask HN: Why are contracts written so poorly?

However, I have been going through this template for over 4 hours and still unable to understand a single line because its just so bad english.

I am kind of irritated & angry at the same time. We are all told that we should write proper, concise, accurate and clear. But when it comes to writing contracts where everything should be crystal clear, we have to revert to writing jumbled up phrases, 10 lines long sentences and highly complicated words.

I feel that there is a huge gap between how people/companies interact with each other now and the formalities of paper work. Perhaps an opportunity of a startup that would introduce a new way of writing contracts

Contracts are not actually english, although they may contain familiar words. Contracts are actually a kind of code designed to be run in a courtroom. Many of the silly sounding words and phrases are actually reserved words in this code and have special meanings.

Sometimes the obfuscation is deliberate on the part of the legal profession in order to keep them all employed. (At least there is no incentive for them to make it simpler.)

Don't feel bad. Imagine how a lawyer would feel if confronted by a large perl script that his entire livelihood may or may not depend on. :)

Thing is, contracts are for when you get in a fight, and once you're there, figuring out in a fair manner what spirit you were in when signing is an incredibly hard problem.