Say what?
One of my clients was recently sued for unlawful termination. Since my client was of foreign nationality, they needed to have the lawsuit translated into English, and they requested me to do so. I accepted the job because I have a legal background and thought it would be relatively easy for me to translate, since I would be familiar with some legal terms.
Unfortunately, while I was translating, I very often found myself asking out loud, “What are you trying to say?” but of course I didn’t get any response – only a curious look from my dog Sam. This was not because I couldn’t understand the legal terms used by the lawyer who wrote that lawsuit, but it was more because the lawyer was writing in circles, with too many repetition which confused the living daylight out of me. Basically, from my point of view, he failed to make a point at all. If I was the judge, I would have dismissed the case based on bad writing alone – lucky for him that I wasn’t. 
In the end, I managed to translate it all, although I also had to translate the repetition – keeping in mind that I had to translate, not interpret. This unfortunately meant that my client would probably not understand the lawsuit either (due to the poor writing). Thankfully, they hired an Indonesian law firm to handle their case (rightly so).
I know you may be thinking that lawyers are notorious for writing in circles because they are trying to confuse the judge into ruling in their favour. Well, to be fair, it could very well go both ways: the judge may also just decide against it because the document just doesn’t make sense.
This is yet another reason why you should really write in a clear, concise, effective, logical and organized manner. If people can’t understand what you are trying to tell them, how can you expect them to agree with you? In this case, how can the lawyer expect his opponent to understand him and get him to respond to his demands? How can the lawyer expect the judge to agree on something that has been presented through a completely disorganized document?
One way to ensure that your document is readable by other people is to actually get other people to read it for you. Preferably, by someone who doesn’t know much about the subject. If that person comes back to you with too many ‘Say what?’ questions or without any clue as to what he/she just read, then you should rewrite it. But if that person understands what you wrote, not only will it show that you have written in a clear, concise way, but it will also show that you have remembered one rule of writing effectively: using common words.
Comments
That makes the difference between a smart lawyer and a lousy one, or in general an efficient person (in thinking and doing) and one that is not so. I believe that all lawyers are created equal but one is more equal than other ….I could not agree more with you on using common words to write effectively. Once my thesis advisor told me that he preffered to be the advisor for students from alien (non US) countries who have English as second language because they write ‘effectively’ when in fact our language mastering is a bit limited …! Good article!
Thank you Oom! It’s true, in my previous job as editor I often found that the documents written by non-English-native staff are relatively easier to understand.
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