A Study
One Saturday morning, a MIT’s study intrigued me. It explores why legal documents are complex, convoluted, and difficult to understand.
As a law student, I witness the complexity of legal writing firsthand. Legal prose often features intricate center-embedded syntax, passive constructions, and dense legal jargon, making sentences hard to process (legalese). Even judges and lawyers perpetuate this style, as if it were a tradition worth preserving.
If you don’t share my pain, read the following extract from a judgment.1 See if you can grasp the court’s point:
These suits were not a proceeding in rem against the land, but were in personam against the owners of it. Whether they all resided within the territory or not does not appear, nor is it matter of any importance. No person is required to answer in a suit on whom process has not been served, or whose property has not been attached. In this case, there was no personal notice, nor an attachment or other proceeding against the land, until after the judgments. The judgments, therefore, are nullities, and did not authorise the executions on which the land was sold.2
Complicated, right? But the message is quite simple: a court can only rule against you if it properly notifies you or it seizes the property in dispute. Reading a single paragraph is enough to raise eyebrows, yet some legal professionals manage to write hundred-page judicial opinions filled with such legalese.
What surprised me most from the study wasn’t the convoluted style of legal prose—I’m used to that—but how even people without legal training mimic this style. When researchers asked laypeople to draft laws prohibiting crimes like drunk driving, burglary, or arson, they used centre-embedded clauses—long, complex sentence structures that make legal documents hard to follow—far more often than in everyday writing, such as crime stories.
Why? The study suggests legalese acts as a “performative utterance,” a linguistic term for language that doesn’t just describe reality but changes it. Laws, like magic spells, establish rules to alter the world. Their complex, distinctive style signals this world-changing power.
Yes, laws are deliberately made complex. It conveys a sense of authority — that’s what makes judges sound commanding and lawyers sound professional. Meanwhile, people unconsciously accept that laws must sound intricate to be legitimate. If a law isn’t complex, it doesn’t feel like a law at all.
A Reflection
Wait. This doesn’t sound right. To me, the opposite is true. If any text on earth must be crystal clear, it’s the law.
When A.V. Dicey explored the rule of law, he emphasized that laws should be predictable, uniformly applied, and accessible so people can plan their lives effectively. These principles remain vital today. The World Justice Project underscores that the rule of law requires laws to be “publicly promulgated” and transparent enough to guide people’s actions.
Yet legalese makes law harder to understand. We, the people subject to the law, risk misunderstanding and misapplying it. Many don’t even bother reading it at all. This makes the law subtly less accessible. While misreading literature or philosophical texts has limited impact (it merely makes life less enriching), misreading law can put us behind bars. Because law carries world-changing power, it demands exceptional clarity. The greater a text’s impact on our lives, the less we can afford to let language obscure its meaning.
Some might argue that the need for clarity, consistency, and predictability makes legal complexity inevitable. Consider a statute imposing criminal liability.3 Because people have to know when they will cross the red line, a good law should clearly define the scope of liability, address various scenarios, and account for exceptions. This level of detail can make laws inherently complex.
It’s true — but only to the extent that complexity serves a necessary purpose. The study, on the other hand, targeted the unnecessary complexity that merely serves the specific social function of signaling authority, rather than providing necessary details to the legal text in question.
I believe complex ideas can be expressed without using convoluted language. Make no mistake—not all legal professionals write in legalese. Lord Denning, one of my legal heroes, stands out as a rare exception, shining like a diamond in the rough.
I admire Lord Denning not only for his sharp legal reasoning but also for his ability to write clear, concise judgments:
The Act of 1946 provides that “any decision of a claim or question … shall be final.” Do those words preclude the Court of Queen’s Bench from issuing a certiorari4 to bring up the decision? … The word “final” is not enough. That only means “without appeal.” It does not mean “without recourse to certiorari.” It makes the decision final on the facts, but not final on the law.5
Simple, bold, and direct. And I doubt anyone will question his legal authority because his writing lacks a “professional” veneer. Writing simply makes prose more vivid and memorable. It is not for the sole benefit of judges and lawyers. A memorable judgment handed down by courts serves all whose lives are shaped by our ever-changing laws. Law should be complex only insofar as it is necessary to deliver clarity, consistency, and predictability. Everything else is secondary.
Yet, if legalese hinders access to justice, we are all complicit. We must reject the unhelpful assumption that legal language must sound more sophisticated than everyday speech, or that it should be difficult to read. This self-imposed barrier discourages us from engaging with and understanding our legal rights. If laws were truly accessible in terms of readability, even the most vulnerable people—those who cannot afford lawyers—could better understand their rights. This issue extends beyond language and style.
This reminds me of Kafka’s Before the Law. In the parable, a man seeks access to “the Law” but is stopped by a doorkeeper who declares he cannot enter “at the present time.” Despite the open gate, the man chooses to wait for permission rather than challenge the doorkeeper’s authority, believing the law should be accessible to everyone at all times. The man spends his entire life waiting to gain entry but never succeeds. Only at his final moment does he learn that the door was meant for him alone and his waiting was unnecessary. By then, the door is closing.
Legalese, like the doorkeeper, acts as a barrier blocking access to the law. We are like the man who never challenges the doorkeeper’s authority or questions whether the barrier is necessary. Our inability to access the law stems not only from the doorkeeper’s restrictions but also from our own acceptance of the system’s authority. We simply assume the law is too complex for us to understand.
True, language is not the only obstacle to justice in real life. As the parable suggests, beyond the first doorkeeper lie others, each more formidable: procedures, costs, and bureaucracy further distance us from justice. These obstacles are real. But the self-imposed initial hurdle of language—rooted in fear, conformity, or blind trust—keeps us passively waiting before (but not in) the law. It won’t take long for us to realize that only we can overcome this barrier. The door is meant for us alone.
A Perspective
None of the above reasons compel me to write clearly. You might think it odd if I say I write clearly to defend the rule of law. I’m not that ambitious.
My motivation is straightforward: unclear writing frustrates me. I come from a philosophy background — a discipline that demands precise thinking. You cannot think clearly without writing clearly. This may explain why I struggled more than my law school peers.
Nor do I mean that you won’t need a lawyer just because you can understand legal text on your own. After all, law remains a profession. Some legal issues transcend language, and you need help and guidance in those circumstances. It’s like learning medical facts on YouTube — it doesn’t make you capable of performing surgery on yourself, but it helps you understand your body and make informed decisions. Similarly, clear legal writing empowers better choices and fosters better solutions when seeking help.
Jargon isn’t unique to law. Technical terms enable efficient communication within fields where people share the same knowledge base, so they don’t have to explain concepts from scratch. But when we are not mindful of our audience, jargon can stifle the spread of insightful ideas across disciplines, let alone reaching the public.
This is why it’s rare yet valuable when an expert in one field manages to write a bestselling non-fiction book. But in law, such clarity is not just desirable—it’s essential. It can be a matter of life and death.
- In the common law tradition, judgments from higher courts serve as precedents, guiding or binding future cases with similar issues. These rulings effectively function as law. As I will argue, clarity in judicial reasoning is critical, as it directly shapes people’s lives. ↩︎
- Pennoyer v Neff, 95 US 714 (1877). ↩︎
- In many modern common law jurisdictions, law primarily derives from two sources: statutes (legislation enacted by parliament) and case law (alongside a constitution, where applicable). These sources are not wholly distinct. For example, when a statute’s wording is ambiguous in light of specific facts, courts interpret it using established legal principles. Such interpretations, especially from higher courts, create precedents that guide or bind future cases with similar issues. So, statutes and case law operate in tandem. ↩︎
- Certiorari is a court order that allows higher courts to quash unlawful or procedurally unfair decisions made by public bodies like lower courts, tribunals, or administrative authorities. It serves as a check on errors of law, overreach of authority, and violations of natural justice, ensuring public bodies stay within their legal powers. ↩︎
- Alfred Denning, The Discipline of Law (Oxford University Press, 2005) 71. ↩︎
Elvis's Ethos 