Lesson 1: What is legal English? How is it different from general English?

In this course the term legal English is used to describe the language that lawyers from the English common law tradition use when they draft legal documents. If lawyers just used general English there would be no need to give it its own special label - legal English.

I want you to imagine that you have had your first telephone conversation with a lawyer from England. You are each acting on one side of a sale agreement. Your English is good enough for you to have a conversation about the deal, and is friendly enough for you to talk about the weather and what you did at the weekend. Two days later you receive the draft sales agreement and you wonder whether it has been drafted in English at all!

Let me give you as an example a draft deed that was sent to me recently by a lawyer employed by a London council. It was written by a lawyer with English as their first language and yet it contains language that they would not use when talking to their family at the dinner table or their friends at a bar.

Read the draft deed and you will see what I mean.

The premises are ‘situate’ (not situated) at 7 Mal Marche Mews. The deed ‘witnesseth’, and that’s a verb form straight out of the 1611 version of the Holy Bible or from a play by Shakespeare. Scattered throughout are words like ‘hereby’, ‘whereof’, ‘herein’, ‘thereupon’ and ‘thereof’. The contents of the deed are referred to as ‘presents’.

The writer uses two or more words that mean the same thing, or writes a list of similar words where a single alternate word could be used in their place, such as “amendment or variation”, “valid and enforceable”, “breach or default” or “rights powers duties and obligations” (without commas).

Lawyers’ use of words is just different. That’s why it is called legal English and why people like you need a course to help you read and understand the material that native English speakers use.

Other examples legal English

Wikipedia has a useful entry on the features of legal English and identifies how it differs from standard English. The draft deed includes most of them.

• The use of words that are unfamiliar to the general English speaker or they have a meaning that is fixed by law. The draft deed uses some of these technical terms such as undertaking, absolute title and registered proprietor.

• The use of familiar words but in an entirely different way, such as the word presents and whereas in the draft deed.

• The use of words with an -er and -or ending that have a linked -ee word such as employer and employee, bailor and baileee, donor and donee. They apply to people on each side of a relationship. The draft deed contains one such word: mortgagee, which means a person who lends money and who takes land as a security for the loan.

• The use of two or more words that mean the same thing. In the draft deed we have amendment or variation, valid and enforceable, breach or default, revoked and be of no effect.

• Lawyers’ drafting relies heavily on words like “hereby”, “thereof” and “hereafter”.

• Words are placed in an unusual order. How about this for a sentence?

• IN WITNESS whereof with the intent that these presents should be executed as a Deed the parties hereto have duly executed the same the day and year first before written

• The use of phrasal verbs. Standard English is full of phrasal verbs (the combined use of a verb and another word to create a new phrase) such as carry on, pick up, go over, break down and so on. The meaning of carry on is different from the separate words carry and on. To carry on means to continue, which is very different from the meaning of carry which means to hold something and move it from place to place. Many phrasal verbs that lawyers use have taken on a precise or technical meaning. Documents are served on people, you put down a deposit, you write off a debt, you attand at a location. In the draft deed, restrictions are set out, the deed is entered into, and the activities are carried out. We will see throughout the course that each area of legal practice has its own set of phrasal verbs. Lawyers use them a lot.

• Lack of punctuation. The author of the deed does not like to use punctuation. This single sentence of 131 words would be so much clearer if it used some commas, and clearer still if it were broken up into shorter sentences.

This Deed shall be deemed to have been revoked and be of no effect without any further act or deed on the part of either the Council or the Owner if the Implementation Date has not taken place within 3 years of the date of this Deed or the Planning Permission having been granted shall be varied or revoked other than at the request of the Owner or the Planning Permission having been granted is quashed following a successful legal challenge and in any such case any sums paid by the Owner under this Deed shall be repaid to the Owner by the Council forthwith together with interest at the Base Rate of Barclays Bank plc from the date such sums were received by the Council until the date of repayment

Your knowledge of English is good but it’s not enough

You may have a good grasp of English but there is a whole new world of the English that lawyers use that must be conquered if you want to practice law in a second language.