Legal Language Is Deliberately Arcane To Signal Power, Study Finds (mit.edu) 91
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:5, Interesting)
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. Better lawyers figure out new tricks and you have to add more and more complexity to the law to address those tricks. It doesn't help that lobbyists often try to sneak things in to complex language as well but that's a different matter
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You are 100% correct!
https://journals.law.harvard.e... [harvard.edu]
rule #1: Write simply and carefully!
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rule #1: Write simply and carefully!
And then they use 507 more words to flesh out that one point. Kinda illustrative of the argument, I'd say.
"Simply and carefully" in this case boils down to don't use synonyms, and be concise.
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I would tend to disagree but maybe it's professional deformation; in code and algorithms, we often say simple is beautiful, easier to understand and less prone to ambiguity. Given that, I don't see why "removing ambiguity in the language of the contract" would add complexity, quite the contrary actually. Complexity usually add ambiguity IMHO.
Poor commenting standards (Score:5, Interesting)
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:5, Insightful)
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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And yet, as with programming, it's literally impossible to cover every edge case (which you call "exceptions").
Your example of conflicting principles is a feature, not a bug. Systems of principles or laws or agreements will *always* have conflicts. You cannot enumerate an answer to every one.
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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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Take for example Roe vs Wade, if laws where specific how could two sets of judges come up with 2 different interpretations.
Because the law they were citing (the 14th amendment) is intentionally vague, that's why.
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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:5, Insightful)
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.
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It should also be realistically possible to read all of the laws that apply to you.
That's like saying "it should be realistically possible to read about and understand the inner workings of my car's engine." Sure, if you're a mechanic. But a car, like the law, is a complex beast by nature, and with such things the layperson will often need the assistance of an expert in that domain.
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This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say they thought the IRS tax instructions were "understandable." If they are so understandable, why do the majority of people use tax software or tax preparers to file their taxes for them? This market exists precisely because IRS rules are *difficult* to understand.
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.
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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 profe
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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.
You are conflating natural language, where you are correct, with domain-specific or technical language, where you are wrong.
Using an arcane language like Latin does not add precision, it just means that untrained people find it hard to understand.
They use Latin where they are referring to specific legal concepts or principals. For example, pro se means something very specific, that you are representing yourself in court, you are acting as your own lawyer, and you are litigating your own case. It means all of those things .You can write out all of that in a proceeding, or you can just say pro se, which means *exactly* that.
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.
So yo
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I agree with most of what you said, but acronyms exists for a good reason (yes they need to be explained if not know, but we need them). Can you imagine having a conversation where there were no acronyms like: RAM, CRT, LCD, LED, FIFO, DR (since you mentioned it), SaaS, HTML, and so on. What if you had to give the full words every time you now use the acronym? We'd never have brief conversations again. :)
Re:Precision (Score:4, Interesting)
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 benefit, so GOOD law takes more steps that requires further reading. If you read on, you'll likely find:
State Lawcode Chapter 10, 44200
(a) For the purposes of this chapter, the following definitions apply unless otherwise stated;.
(1) "Computer" means an electronic device consisting of processors of various types, data storage, and a means of inputting information. It is typically not easily portable by the average person and requires a separately powered monitor to view information. For the purposes of this chapter, laptops, smartphones, and other computer-like devices built for easy transport are not computers.
(2) "Buyer" means the original retail purchaser of a computer and any subsequent purchaser, recipient, or owner of a computer who takes possession after the original purchase by the first buyer.
(A) For the purposes of this chapter, "buyer" does not include a person, business, or other entity that purchases a computer with the intent to sell the computer again without first using the computer for its intended purpose.
State Lawcode Chapter 10, 44231.1
(a) For the purposes of this section, "Orange" can be a variety of shades of orange, but must be generally acceptable as "orange" by a reasonable person with normal eyesight.
Those terms get defined because if they're not, someone will try to argue their definition while making a claim in court and it's best to define EVERYTHING. This will sometimes result in weird, exclusive definitions (like the "computer definition" above), but it typically for a reason. For example, "desktop computer" isn't used because one would then have to differentiate between computers intended to be placed on the desk vs. floor vs. remote connection, etc.
The headline uses the term "archaic", but while they sometimes use Latin, MOST law uses the language from the era it was written and everything is defined. It's not so much "archaic" as it is specific to the industry (jargon). I'm sure that a lawyer asking about the reasons why certain data cannot easily be pulled together would find the descriptions of one-to-many and many-to-one relationships as esoteric. They're not hard to understand for the sake of obfuscation, though. They're as descriptive as they need to be for the intended audience.
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and from a lawyers POV your example is a problem.
An all-in-one desktops would not fall under the computer definition even though it has a 27 inch screen and is not portable.
because your computer definition unnecessarily included "a separately powered monitor to view information".
which is what separates a non lawyer from a lawyer. non lawyers dont use precise language.
there are other issues with your example but i will leave those as an exercise to the reader.
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In US law, any ambiguity in a contract must be interpreted in favor of the side that did not write the contract.
It is better to be verbose than to lose because you were not clear and specific as to expectations.
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They're not talking about basic verbosity here, nor the specialized jargon lawyers have developed, nor the Latin they use to represent it. They're talking about a specific grammatical construction.
Attributing motives is always sketchy though. It could be job security rather than authority, although I'm sure that's a benefit too. Then the title annoyingly equates "authority" with "power." Gibson himself suggests it might just be a traditional stylistic thing:
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they are overly verbose because, in general, laws, contracts and case law requires them to be
This is kind of like how the "Paperwork Reduction Act" requires *more* paperwork to document that the necessary documents follow the prescribed reductions of the act.
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And yet, despite all the volumes of legalese design to plug loopholes, lawyers will *always* find a loophole that was missed.
The reality is, as with writing code, it's impossible to cover every edge case.
So the net effect of all the extra prose is...more hourly fees for lawyers. Nothing else.
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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in the US juries are arbiters of fact not law.
Yes, but they have to determine whether those facts mean that someone has broken the law because they only provide a guilty/not guilty verdict and to do that they have to understand the law which means that someone has to explain it to them in cases where the law is complex. My uncle used to be a bank inspector for a major bank in the UK and the few times when he uncovered illegal activity and had to go to court he always said that the difficulty the prosecutors had with the case was getting the jury to un
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in the US juries are arbiters of fact not law.
Yes, but they have to determine whether those facts mean that someone has broken the law because they only provide a guilty/not guilty verdict and to do that they have to understand the law which means that someone has to explain it to them in cases where the law is complex. My uncle used to be a bank inspector for a major bank in the UK and the few times when he uncovered illegal activity and had to go to court he always said that the difficulty the prosecutors had with the case was getting the jury to understand complex financial laws and how they applied to the case in question. It was not enough for the jury to believe the fact that the defendant did X they also had to understand why X was illegal before they could reach a guilty verdict.
Yes... this is exactly the purpose of jury instructions, as I was trying to explain (I apparently did quite a poor job of explaining, my apologies).
For example, here [wilawlibrary.gov] are the model jury instructions from the state of Wisconsin for "first degree intentional homicide" (what most people would call "murder.") These model instructions will be modified for the specifics of the case (the prosecution and defense offer specific changes they believe are necessary, and the judge decides which of those modifications sh
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Lawyers are not out to get you by writing purposely confusing language.
Except for those intentional situations such as: /s
- Writing EULAs that need to obfuscate the super creepy parts
- Making it seem like you won't get screwed by your health/auto/house/etc insurance policy
- Limited warranties
Kidding, I don't really know how these things come to exist.
Do lawyers actually write these things? As in humans that are also lawyers?
Plain English Campaign (Score:4, Interesting)
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:3)
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 more precise.
Is legalese bloated? Definitely.
The more common a word the shorter it gets. Television -> TV, carriage -> car, etc.
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:3)
..."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.
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Well, I'm no fan of "shall," but I can imagine that in various boilerplate, precedent has established what "shall" means in that boilerplate, and changing it invites new challenges.
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In the specific document I was referring to in my original reply, you could generally infer the intended meaning from the overall context. That is, sometimes the "shall" was intended to mean something mandatory (i.e. "must" or "has a duty to"). In other cases, it was most likely intended to be permissive (i.e. "may"). But why create the possibility for confusion? And then there those instances in which the intended meaning couldn't be inferred (if the word had any meaning at all). For example, I often
Re: lawyers shall use "shall" (Score:2)
My pet peeve is the word "shall," which I try to avoid whenever possible.
Is that you, Katz [the-scp.foundation]?
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
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OTOH, computer programmers also have to write clear and unambiguous text for computers, utterly devoid of intelligence, artificial or otherwise.
We solved this problem about 70 years ago by providing the facility to name pieces
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.
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That's what Derrida overlooked.
Come on. You're not going to stuff a phrase explaining who Jacques Derrida is right in the middle of your sentence?
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.
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The phrase "Now or at any point in time" simply means "Now,"
Does it, though? What if that "point in time" is tomorrow? That's certainly not "now".
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!
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Actually, AI is really good at this. Google's NotebookLM https://notebooklm.google.com/... [google.com] lets you upload legal documents and ask questions about them. Yes, hallucinations are possible, but these systems are getting better all the time.
Just Legal Language? (Score:2)
Lawyers have their own vocabulary and language (Score:2)
As a programmer, I don't want to provide instructions to my computer in English (or any natural language). I need a subset of human language that is precise and unambiguous. I don't want nuance and multiple meanings to trip up the interpretation of my instructions.
Part of the court room discourse is a ritualized performance that is designed to keep laypeople at arm's length from the domain of JD's. But another aspect of legal language is that lawmakers and lawyers need a industrial sub-language that is well
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As a programmer, I don't want to provide instructions to my computer in English (or any natural language).
I do. But as a programmer, I'm willing to accept a structured definition of a programing block which includes data declarations and other similar constructs that apply to the context. Law doesn't work like that. Individual sentences, or even phrases, can be struck down. Practically, this may result in changing the entire meaning of the law. But often, a separability clause [lsd.law] is included in a bill in an attempt to rescue unchallenged parts. Even when the best solution might be "throw it all out and send it bac
opportunity (Score:2)
Well, if the language is hard for humans to understand, it's a perfect task for LLMs to translate it to identically accurate easier to understand language.
Legalese v. Precision (Score:2)
Hmmm. There seems to be a consensus being built around "precision" on this. I am no different -- as a former sysadmin, precision in my tech docs was a requirement, especially when it came to enforcing unpopular IT policies and/or complex technical work-arounds. However, precision alone is not the ultimate goal. Precision is the foundation of intent and enforceability, as any tort lawyer who has survived contract law will affirm. Without it, duties, breaches, and damages become open to ambiguous interpr