Legal English - Key Features

Key Features

As noted above, legal English differs from standard English in a number of ways. The most important of these differences are as follows:

• Use of terms of art. Legal English, in common with the language used by other trades and professions, employs a great deal of technical terminology which is unfamiliar to the layman (e.g. waiver, restraint of trade, restrictive covenant, promissory estoppel). Much of this vocabulary is derived from French and Latin.
• These terms of art include ordinary words used with special meanings. For example, the familiar term consideration refers, in legal English, to contracts, and means, an act, forbearance or promise by one party to a contract that constitutes the price for which the promise of the other party is bought (Oxford Dictionary of Law). Other examples are construction, prefer, redemption, furnish, hold, and find.
• Lack of punctuation. One aspect of archaic legal drafting – particularly in conveyances and deeds – is the conspicuous absence of punctuation. This arose from a widespread idea among lawyers that punctuation was ambiguous and unimportant, and that the meaning of legal documents was contained only in the words used and their context. In modern legal drafting, punctuation is used, and helps to clarify their meaning.
• Use of doublets and triplets. There is a curious historical tendency in legal English to string together two or three words to convey what is usually a single legal concept. Examples of this are null and void, fit and proper, (due) care and attention, perform and discharge, terms and conditions, dispute, controversy or claim, and promise, agree and covenant. This was originally done for the sake of completeness. However sometimes the words used mean exactly the same thing (null and void); although that is not always the case (dispute, controversy or claim).
• Unusual word order. At times, the word order used in legal documents appears distinctly strange. For example, the provisions for termination hereinafter appearing or will at the cost of the borrower forthwith comply with the same. There is no single clear reason for this, although the influence of French grammatical structures is certainly a contributory factor.
• Use of unfamiliar pro-forms. For example, the same, the said, the aforementioned etc. The use of such terms in legal texts is interesting since very frequently they do not replace the noun – which is the whole purpose of pro-forms – but are used as adjectives to modify the noun. For example, the said John Smith.
• Use of pronominal adverbs. Words like hereof, thereof, and whereof (and further derivatives, including -at, -in, -after, -before, -with, -by, -above, -on, -upon) are not often used in ordinary modern English. They are used in legal English primarily to avoid repeating names or phrases. For example, the parties hereto instead of the parties to this contract.
• -er, -or, and -ee name endings. Legal English contains some words and titles, such as employer and employee; lessor and lessee, in which the reciprocal and opposite nature of the relationship is indicated by the use of alternative endings.
• Use of phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs play a large role in legal English, as they do in standard English, and are often used in a quasi-technical sense. For example, parties enter into contracts, put down deposits, serve upon other parties, write off debts, and so on.