Is it the easy and simple language or the avoidance of excessive wordiness? I can't really make up my mind on this because of the conflicting nature of the advices and to make it easy and simple you've to explain it which in turn increases the words.

I would really appreciate your take on this.

For reference, the draft is meant to be probably reviewed by associates as a part of a competition.

Keep it wordy and flowery if for a competition. It should be balanced and easy to understand if for filing or will be scrutinised or even thrown at your face by his lordship. But clients do prefer flowery language hence the need to be balanced.

Bhai, can promise you no client wants a flowery wordy mess. I barely have time, and I do not want to spend what limited time I have wading through "flowery" unnecessarily complex emails and memos and pleadings. We all just want advuce that's clear and unequivocal, in a format that's easy to read and not repetitive.

Clarity of thought, and writing that doesn't require a latin dictionary. In 2023, avoiding the archaic "hereinbelow" ("below" will do just fine) and "herewith" is also a component of good writing. As a partner, when I'm sending drafts to clients (who are often GCs at international companies or foreign law firm colleagues), I do not want drafts looking like they were churned out by a seventeenth century lawyer. There's this particular Indian fondness to use excessive legalese and jargon and latin where it can be avoided, which I believe is just lazy writing.

Thank you so much, this really helps. I've also read that it's better if you can make your piece engaging, is it something that should be kept in mind while drafting a policy or an argument?

You can make it more engaging with the use of analogies and comparative analyses with what you're proposing, option tables, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis, Etc. being some of the other mechanism, is it something worth considering sir?

lol. no. you're not a management consultant. no examples, analogies etc (unless you're writing a textbook or blog post, in which case go for it). Simple language that describes the issues and conclusion clearly and precisely. you're there to make your client's job/ the judge's job easier, and they don't want to wade through pages of garbage/ irrelevant stuff/ obscure latin phrases.

My partner would hold me by my throat if I use simpler language lmao.

Crisp, concise, to the point and simple language. I'm 20 years pqe in tax and just hate something which is excessively long. Being in tax, I'm not unfamiliar with long documents and have done quite a lot of transaction tax, so am quite hands on with all the transaction documents. But crisp and to the point document rules the day.

Crisp and to the point it'll be ✅

Really appreciate the response!