Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language

Post by resonious » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 4:12 AM UTC

alar44 wrote: post #226

gault8121 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the text complexity scores from different measures for this text. Flesch Reading Ease score: -24 (text scale) Flesch Reading Ease scored your text: impossible to comprehend. Gunning Fog: 40.7 (text scale) Gunning Fog scored your text: EXTREMELY difficult to read. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 35.7 Grade level: College Graduate and above. The Coleman-Liau Index: 13 Grade level: college The SMOG Index: 25 Grade…

Are you suggesting that our legal system should be understandable by the dumbest person? I don't see how that's feasible or desirable.

Post by Aerroon » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 4:20 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

For everyone commenting "laypeople aren't the intended audience", this monstrosity was a recent Texas constitutional ballot proposal, i.e. all voters in the state were asked to vote on it: > The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school pu…

Post by inetknght » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 4:25 AM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #123

lamontcg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last example is why reading the law is tricky and why we need both a push for plain language and a push to explain language that is necessarily very specific.

In general, yeah, but I have mixed feelings on that particular one. Claims wouldn't be much more understandable if they said: A chair, with four legs, a seat, and a back, and possibly other elements. A good explanation for obtuseness in legal language is: In normal writing, you're trying to be understood. In legal writing, you're trying to make it impossible to be misunderstood.

Post by ChadNauseam » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 4:41 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #230

nwiswell wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a rule of thumb, if the ballot measure is incomprehensible, you're safe in voting against it (which, obnoxiously enough, can sometimes mean voting yes) There is never a good reason for using language this obtuse, but there's lots of bad reasons. This measure in particular seems engineered to be just clear enough to be upheld by a judge, but also sufficiently obfuscated so that the public doesn't know what it's act…

> you're safe in voting against it (which, obnoxiously enough, can sometimes mean voting yes) Sure but if you literally cannot understand it, it may be difficult to determine whether voting against it means voting yes or no.

Post by randomdata » Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 4:45 AM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #67

dctoedt wrote: post #50

Lawyer and contract-drafting teacher here. The biggest problem with unreadable contracts is that we have too many L.O.A.D.s: Lazy Or Arrogant Drafters. (You can decide for yourself: L.O.A.D. of what?) There's a relevant Dilbert cartoon: [0] To simplify contract language, the biggest bang for the buck comes from SSSP: Short, Single-Subject Paragraphs, which are much easier to read; to review and revise during contract…

Thanks for sharing this. As you said, there is a very clear analogy to software factoring. Separating the definition of terms from the clauses relating them is very similar to factoring software logic out into functions. In a way, bad legalese is even worse: at least hard-to-read code can be still be effortlessly and quickly executed by a computer. Every "execution" of your example contract will give someone a headac…