Its 4 am on a Friday. I am looking at changes someone recommended to my draft.

My blood is boiling right now. I just cant stand it anymore.

(a) Is it just me, or has the language being used by lawyers become unclear and pompous and drowning in jargon?

(b) I am also looking at a draft sent by the other side, I don't know what they are smoking. (i) Their agreement reads like a tax statute in terms of cross referencing. (ii) I am unable to read a clause without being directed to another clause which again refers to another clause, which then refers to another clause, which then refers to a schedule and then which refers to Biden's Mummy's Insurance Agent's grandfather's brother in law's third will and so on.
(iii) The agreement also uses such (for the lack of better words) obtuse, vague and obfuscating language, I am unable to understand the agreement. Its not that I am stupid, (I think) I am unable to comprehend it. But I am not sure myself now, because they are a T1 firm's team. And god the drafting mistakes and cross referencing errors

(c) Why can't you have short sentences? Whats the need for a 10 kilometer long sentence?

I see this issue mostly with the newer partners and the younger crop, these guys do not know how to give clear and proper briefings or instructions. They are from the 3,000 free SMSes generation. The older gen seems to be still better. God knows what will happen when the whatsapp gen will become partners.

Disgusting, the way people talk in firms nowadays - vague jargon filled speech which amounts to nonsense. Dafaq do you wanna say bro/sis???
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Please fucking read (a) The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law and (b) On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. These should be mandatory readings given how bad things are.

I am no Shakespeare, and I am fairly average, but for the love of fucking god, write clearly and in a simple manner. You're not gonna win the Pulitzer by writing a pompous tharoor like sentence where simpler language would've sufficed. Please do not take pride in 1870s style drafting. It sucks. DonkeyCojones!!! You guys shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard.

For the sake of making the other person's work easier, for the love of humanity, your language does not make you sound smarter.

God I am not even touching the litigation drafting, that's another beast for some other person.

Hahahahaa this is so true. Especially about unnecessary jargon vomit to sound important and smart.

I'd also like to add fancy fake accents when talking to foreign clients. My partner does it, maybe she does sub consciously, but it's fucking cringe and hilarious 🤣😂😆
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I guess it's a tactic developed by mediocre lawyers in the High Courts as a way of gatekeeping the profession from "Vernacs" and lawyers from the mofussil. A young lawyer peppering your draft with jargon was a way to signal that you "belonged" and had gone to the right schools and did some actual internships.

This is the client's fault. Almost a decade back when Akosha was still an early-stage startup, I had interned over there. We used to draft grievances on the behest of our customers in plain letter occasionally citing case law and used to charge clients a nominal sum for the same. At the end of the letter, we would append 2 para long boilerplate with enough jargon-filled to make it look like a strongly worded legal document. At one point, the founder, who was also a former magic circle lawyer himself decided to refrain from adding it. Within a week, customer complaints about poor quality drafts were increased by a whopping 40%, so we added the boilerplate again and the complaint number got back to normal. If you write in plain simple English while it may be in the best interest of the client, most are not sophisticated enough to understand that and think that they have been ripped off when all they have been charged for is some plain language draft which they could have made their own, so then you will have to explain how much hours you had to put in thinking of all angles and whatnot, so at the end of the day to save your own time and sanity, you tend to drift towards the legalese.

Think about it, at its most basic Lawyers charge their fees because they alone are licensed to practice law and provide legal advice. There is nothing stopping a well read, logically thinking, well-spoken, diligent/hard working non-lawyer from getting better at lawyering skills than the average lawyer. Id you are a commercial lawyer, especially in litigation, you will have to accept that some of your clients may be intelligent and aware enough to fight their own case and may have as good skills as you (minus the procedural skills like putting together all the necessary papers/ancillaries to file a case and get over the registry objections).