How make text plain English
Step 1: look for telltale signs. They are not what you’d think.
- Average sentence length: Divide the number of words by the number of full stops. (It’s not a fully reliable indicator — lawyers like to punctuate lists with semi-colons — but it's a useful rule of thumb).
- Number of words per comnma: Divide the words by the number of commas. This will indicatge
Search for these words:
- by — indicates a likely passive construction
- or — indicates a laundry list to be shortened, or — ohhhhhh tyhe irony — some kind of option that you could de-clutter
- of — indicates a nominalisation (a compound verb - "effect the execution of" rather than "execute".)
- -ing — indicates a participle, and a compound verb
- -ly — indicates an adverb (a verb modifier) - look for a better verb
Dead words: delete dead phrases and any verbiage they carry with them: “whether or not”, “including”, “including but not limited to”, “for the avoidance of doubt”; “to the extent permitted by law”, “, or any other... ” “any and all” “of whatever nature”, “express or implied” “written or oral”,“whatever”, “however”, “howsoever”
Redundancies: Clear out any redundancies: “any and all” is “any”; “right, power or remedy” is “right”
Active, energetic writing: Use direct, active verbs:
- “the Receiving Party must ensure that the Confidential Information is protected and treated with the same degree of care that would apply to a Receiving Party’s own confidential information” becomes “the Receiving Party must treat the Confidential Information with the same care as it treats its own confidential information”
Get rid of over-descriptions - In almost all cases, you don't need to define “Affiliates” or, really, even mention them in a contract
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