Legal Language Is Deliberately Arcane To Signal Power, Study Finds (mit.edu) 50
A new MIT study reveals why legal documents are so hard to read: Both lawyers and non-lawyers instinctively use complex language to signal authority, similar to how magic spells use archaic terms. The research, published in PNAS, found that even laypeople default to convoluted "center-embedded" clauses when writing laws, but switch to plain language for other tasks. From a report:
[Edward] Gibson's [an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences] research group has been studying the unique characteristics of legalese since 2020, when Martinez came to MIT after earning a law degree from Harvard Law School. In a 2022 study, Gibson, Martinez, and Mollica analyzed legal contracts totaling about 3.5 million words, comparing them with other types of writing, including movie scripts, newspaper articles, and academic papers.
That analysis revealed that legal documents frequently have long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences -- a feature known as "center-embedding." Linguists have previously found that this kind of structure can make text much more difficult to understand. "Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages," Gibson says.
In a follow-up study published in 2023, the researchers found that legalese also makes documents more difficult for lawyers to understand. Lawyers tended to prefer plain English versions of documents, and they rated those versions to be just as enforceable as traditional legal documents. "Lawyers also find legalese to be unwieldy and complicated," Gibson says. "Lawyers don't like it, laypeople don't like it, so the point of this current paper was to try and figure out why they write documents this way."
That analysis revealed that legal documents frequently have long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences -- a feature known as "center-embedding." Linguists have previously found that this kind of structure can make text much more difficult to understand. "Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages," Gibson says.
In a follow-up study published in 2023, the researchers found that legalese also makes documents more difficult for lawyers to understand. Lawyers tended to prefer plain English versions of documents, and they rated those versions to be just as enforceable as traditional legal documents. "Lawyers also find legalese to be unwieldy and complicated," Gibson says. "Lawyers don't like it, laypeople don't like it, so the point of this current paper was to try and figure out why they write documents this way."
Precision (Score:5, Insightful)
From the lawyers I listen to and talk to, they are overly verbose because, in general, laws, contracts and case law requires them to be. There have been multimillion dollar lawsuits over what a comma means. The default is to be as verbose and precise as possible in your language. It has nothing to do with feelings of superiority, it has everything to do with protecting yourself or your clients from expensive lawsuits.
Loopholes (Score:3)
Sit down and read the official rules of basketball from the 1950s and compare it to the official rules of basketball from 2020. Way more verbose and way more complex because all sorts of rules had to be added in order to make the game interesting and competitive as better and bigger and more athletic players found ways around the rules. It's the same for every sport.
Law works the same way. Be
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You are 100% correct!
https://journals.law.harvard.e... [harvard.edu]
rule #1: Write simply and carefully!
Poor commenting standards (Score:3)
Computer code is arcane and precise and verbose, which is why there are comments to explain in concise English what the intent is. Perhaps legal code should too.
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Most laws have such documentation by the people who wrote the law. The courts often rely on it to interpret the intent. This has been common for at least as long as the US has existed.
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The problem there is that the precision is mismatched. I had to review a 60-page legal contract last week, and "my" lawyer indicated that the subtleties of one clause were inapplicable to another clause, despite a fundamental conflict between the two. Going back to your example of the Oxford comma, if you look for context in a contract or law then all the subtleties matter.
I am all for specificity, but in the end simplicity in communication structure is far superior. List format is much cleaner than the ver
Re:Precision (Score:4)
Exceptions Prove the Rules.
The law isn't there for the rules, it is to flesh out the exceptions. The rules seem clear and absolute, until they don't.
Simple rule: Do not kill
Exception: it's okay if you're defending your own life
Exception to the exception: unless you started the fight
And this goes on and on until it is complex string of exceptions to the otherwise simple rule.
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I am all for specificity, but in the end simplicity in communication structure is far superior. List format is much cleaner than the verbosity 99% of the time.
Specificity and simplicity are mutually exclusive. Generalising creates simplicity. The problem is the entire legal profession exists purely as an exercise of determining edge cases (along with a few stupidly obvious lawsuits).
As for list format, most contracts are already numbered paragraphs. The act of being a list doesn't make something simple.
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Specificity and simplicity are mutually exclusive
That's a there simple statement.
They are not mutually exclusive, and they do not need to use jargon like Latin. You can rant on all you like trying to cover every case you want but if a Judge wants to rule against you they will the will come up with a rationalization as to why they can no matter how much is written. Take for example Roe vs Wade, if laws where specific how could two sets of judges come up with 2 different interpretations. No lawyer will guarantee that you will win a case, why? Because despi
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There was an episode of ST:TNG, The Ensigns of Command [fandom.com], where the Enterprise has three days to evacuate people from a planet which was previously ceded to the Sheliak Corporate, or else the people will be killed. As the link indicates, the Federation originally sent 372 lawyers to negotiate the treaty.
Picard finds a clause in the treaty which gives them the out they need to perform the evacuation over a longer period of time. In paragraph 1290 [youtube.com]. S
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It has nothing to do with feelings of superiority, it has everything to do with protecting yourself or your clients from expensive lawsuits.
This becomes even more obvious to IT and programming. Details matter.
There used to be a time when words had definitions and meaning, and often the distinction is critically important.
"may" vs "must" is an example I just had come up today. They are not synonyms.
Lately it seems people don't like the fact a word has a shared definition, and it seems they will throw out a word they personally redefined yet don't tell anyone they did so or what they want it to mean.
(Not that we should accept such casual and de
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No it doesn't as IT and programming no matter how specific the specs a customer gives me, if I am in any doubt I will clarify. And even after doing my best at implementing what I believe the customer wants it will go through user acceptance testing to be certain and there are inevitably differences of opinion. The spec is irrelevant at that point apart from who pays for the changes the product has to be what the customer wanted.
In the end its about balance, spending years developing a spec starts to get dim
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Law is also built on precedent in both statute and prior findings. If the language of those is complex, nuanced, and precise, then further contracts or law built upon those prior conditions will very likely have to be just as complex, nuanced, and precise.
Courts have ruled on the nature of the spirit of the law versus the text of the law, but it can be uncertain which way such rulings will go.
Science does the Same (Score:2)
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Re:Precision (Score:4)
I used to have to file taxes in the US. The IRS tax instructions also need to be precise, yet they somehow manage to make them understandable to ordinary people. Which makes sense, since ordinary people have to follow the instructions.
Seems to me that ordinary people also have to follow the laws. Hence, the laws should be written the same way.
On the same point: It should also be realistically possible to read all of the laws that apply to you. That means limiting their size to - say - 3 or 4 novels. Maybe a million words or so. Need a new law? Find an old one to knock out.
Its holistic mindshare (Score:2)
They're expiditing their core values in a textual rightsizing methodology and incubating a multichannel advocate scenario via the document visioneer opening a dialog with thesaurial dynamics.
Factor and modularize (Score:1)
They can still make specifics be cleaner, like defining working terms and sub-terms in one spot so that long explanations don't have to be in-lined in main paragraphs via run-on sentences and/or tricky positional references ("aforementioned"). It's like functions and subroutines: break big problem into multiple smaller problems and give the parts working names.
Re:Precision (Score:4, Insightful)
Verbosity does not mean precision, the more verbose you are the more are liable to introduce loopholes, especially if someone is looking for them. Natural language by its very nature is imprecise.
What you said maybe their rationalization as to why verbose language is needed, however I believe it is to protect their jobs with terminology. Using an arcane language like Latin does not add precision, it just means that untrained people find it hard to understand.
Also its not just lawyers that do this most professions do, doctors, accountants, builder and even computer industry use jargon to make them fell superior to the plebs. Acronyms are a good example of this. I remember going into a meeting where they where discussing DR, I had no idea what they where talking about, but since I am not shy about those things I asked, and they said disaster recovery, then the whole thing made sense and I was able to contribute. Its not always intentional, but I believe we should make an effort to be as understandable to as many people as possible.
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Agreed. Due to my work, I often have to cite law and bills under consideration. Not everyone can read it well because they don't understand the actual logic of language. Example:
State Lawcode Chapter 10, 44231
(a) A computer sold in the State shall be the color orange while for sale.
(1) The buyer of a computer may change the color after purchase.
That seems straightforward to many, but law is written to be exact because people will always try to skirt the law for their own
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Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Informative)
The idea that legal language is *deliberately* arcane to signal power is a conspiracy theory that is unworthy of academic study. How about look into ways to help lawyers communicate more effectively with shorter and fewer sentences, less arcane language, and with fewer mid sentence definitions? Lawyers are not out to get you by writing purposely confusing language. Most of them aren't anyway. Insulting them is not exactly going to help the situation either.
Not all Lawyers are the Same (Score:2)
How about look into ways to help lawyers communicate more effectively with shorter and fewer sentences, less arcane language, and with fewer mid sentence definitions?
Surely lawyers can already do this well, or at least the barristers who argue criminal cases. I doubt they'd persuade any jury with complex, legalistic language - they need to be able to acurately explain complex concepts to average members of the public.
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You mention barristers so I'm assuming you're not in the US, and this may not be applicable to you... in the US juries are arbiters of fact not law. On questions of law, after hearing all the testimony and before beginning deliberations, juries are presented with instructions from the court that the jury uses to apply the facts they have determined to the case in question. The instructions typically break the law down into elements that the jury can understand and present questions the jury can answer to
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Plain English Campaign (Score:2)
The Plain English Campaign (PEC) has had some success in the UK. It should be emulated in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
While we are about it, please bring back Plain Dealing. I'm looking at you, junk fees. https://ultimatelexicon.com/de... [ultimatelexicon.com]
Job Security /s (Score:2)
While legalese is "job security" -- it is MORE than "just" some power trip.
Language, especially English, is hideously ambiguous. Lawyers and Judges, when not corrupt, are TRYING to be precise. i.e. The letter of the law vs the spirit of the Law.
Take for instance stealing vs copyright infringement and people incorrectly applying them.
You CAN'T steal software; all you can do is COPY it because it is literally just a number. The MEDIUM is DIFFERENT so lawyers and judges use different words because they are m
Related question. (Score:1)
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If you trust your car, boat, house, or spleen to a translation bot; then you probably deserve the consequences.
Just like those bizarre signs you see ... (Score:2)
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Similarly, when you see hyper-specific legal language, it's because some lawyer had exploited looser language in a similar case, not to "signal power".
I own at least one firearm that is literally engraved with a warning an entire paragraph long that boils down to not to load it, point it at another human being, and pull the trigger, because that could result in gross bodily injury or death. Legal language is what it is because litigants made it that way.
Duh. In other words: (Score:2)
In the software biz we call this (Score:2)
..."spaghetti code". It may technically work, but is a PITA to figure out and change.
Can we leverage these action points? (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but our digital prophets with a brand value can rightsize and re-facilitate the cohesiveness of this argument vis-a-vis the vision enabled by the article of collaborative delegation to core process output of the legal word space.
Pro actively the cornerstone onboarder of this whiteboard results driven idea sanctum ran up the flagpole and found a high G inpact study when the pole was found not to be fully committed to the actualised challenge though he was enabled as a big hitter with the thought l
lawyers shall use "shall" (Score:5, Insightful)
25 year lawyer here. This story strikes home as the use of needlessly complex language in legal writing has always pissed me off. In many instances, the goals the parties are trying to achieve require the use of some complex sentences and provisions. But in too many cases, the complexity is just a needless attempt to sound important. Or worse, it is evidence of a reluctance to understand what you're actually providing to your clients. Many of the worst offenses are found in templates that have been circulating in the profession for decades and lawyers simply copy garbage without really understanding it.
My pet peeve is the word "shall," which I try to avoid whenever possible. Way back when I was a baby lawyer, I was given a document to review in which "shall" had four different meanings, one of which was completely inexplicable (it literally had no meaning that I could articulate). I ended up editing the word out of the entire document, replacing it with "must", "may", or other words and phrases that have clearly distinguishable definitions which normal people regularly use (or just eliminating the word entirely in the few instances where it had no meaning). The partner who gave me the assignment ended up putting them all back in (including the instances in which the word had no meaning).
Bust the bloaters (Score:1)
If the text is made unnecessarily complex, it should be easier to sue the lawyer or law firm. If a legal expert can demonstrate there are too many or key long-winded passages in a contract that have well-known or obvious shorter alternatives, then a judge and/or legal review panel can fine and/or cite the lawyer. Too many transgressions and they lose their license.
Dumb analysis (Score:2)
Gotta publish....
They're focusing on this sort of thing:
Betty Smith will give to her mother Gloria Smith (hereinafter "Gloria") one million dollars (the "Payment") on December 1st (the "Payment Date"). Gloria agrees to deposit the Payment at First National Bank (the "Bank") on the Payment Date.
And saying that you only do that in legal writing, not when you're telling a narrative story.
In a narrative story, you might say this:
Betty gave her mom $1M in December 1st. On that date, she deposited it at First
Study discovers putting things in water (Score:2)
makes them wet!
"center embedded" ? (Score:2)
If there is nothing central to what they are trying to say, then it sounds like they aren't saying anything. That's what Derrida overlooked.
All for clearing out archaic language though.
Finally, a good use for AI (Score:2)
Put those AIs to work translating legalese to human English.
Hell, we should start with privacy policies.
Consider the beginnings Folks (Score:1)
of the Royal Court, and Latin was the legal language. Thereafter English was used and written by scribes, who were paid by the
word (or letter). So they enriched themselves. The phrase "Now or at any point in time" simply means "Now," but it's worth more
to the scribe. Those phrases have been tested in courts, so are not changed.
Someone had to fund a study on this? (Score:2)
I think whomever wrote this paper is falling victim to the very thing they are "studying".
Look like 2020 is still alive... (Score:3)
...where everything is rooted in power and systemic racism.
The author, Eric Martinez, is a graduate student who specializes in :"the cognitive foundations of the law."
https://saxelab.mit.edu/lab_me... [mit.edu]
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Here we have Mr. Cognitive Foundation hammering law.
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Need google-translate "Lawyer--English" (Score:2)
This is a job either for AI (well maybe not...hallucinations), or google translate, for a new language called "lawyer".
(anyone remember the unix command line program 'jive'? it converts English into jive (sort of 'ebonics' of the 1960s), it was funny as hell, but actually quite good!