Get off my case! Rethinking litigated terms
Judy Knighton | November 8, 2018
Are you hesitating to change a legal expression in something you’ve written because the term you’ve used has a whole stack of case law behind its interpretation? Just stop for a minute and think about what that means.
The case law exists because someone either:
- had trouble understanding what the term meant
- thought it worth going to court to argue for a meaning beyond the obvious.
Every court case is further evidence that the term isn’t clear. So the bigger the stack, the stronger the argument for finding another term.
I rest my case.
Think plain legal language can’t be done?
Our CE Lynda Harris recently attended Clarity 2018, a conference dedicated to plain legal writing.
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