ENGLISH FOR LEGAL PURPOSES: LEGALESE OR PLAIN ENGLISH?

Legal language, which has developed over hundreds of years, is characterised by specific features, making it difficult for non-lawyers to understand. The need to improve the speed and accessibility of civil proceedings and to reduce their cost made the Lord Chancellor to set up the Woolf Inquiry, in March 1994. His recommendations based on extensive consultations in the UK, especially England and Wales, form the framework of the major changes to the system that came into effect in April 1999. The reform also includes the vocabulary used in legal proceedings. These efforts began with an organization of lawyers, joined by the Plain Language Commission and supported by UK government as a result of the growing demands for change in traditional styles of legal drafting.