Legal Clarity

The most common complaint with regard to legal writing is that the language is complex, ambiguous, and wordy. Those who do not have experience with legal writing often find the wording cryptic and attribute the writing style to lawyers trying to hide important information. The biggest hurdle to interpreting legal language is the complexity of both the law and the language necessary to convey legal matters. Kenneth Oettle writes in New Jersey Law Journal that law needs to focus on categorizing information in order to make it easier to understand. Oettle believes that legal writing involves a focus on finding the right word or phrase to convey exact meaning (Oettle 20). For example, in the following paragraph the writer sought to convey that coverage under a statute regulating the storage of hazardous substances expanded to include smaller facilities. Instead of saying the statute "expanded to include" or "expanded to cover" smaller facilities, the writer said the law "was amended to cover" them, leaving the reader to deduce that "amended" meant "expanded."

Example 1: The original act defined "major facilities" as those having the capacity to store 400,000 gallons of hazardous substances of any kind. Several years later, the law was amended to cover facilities having the capacity to store at least 50,000 gallons if the hazardous substances are other than petroleum. Last year, the law was amended to cover facilities that can store at least 200,000 gallons o

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Category: Government - L