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| [Raspberries in different stages*] |
I just successfully completed a semester course on contract drafting from the Concord Law
School, an accredited online law institution. It had been
more than 30 years since I completed my year of law studies at the University
of Oregon and some 17 years since I began working as a legal translator. As a result
of this course, I reinforced my opinions about learning and age, my previous
career opinions and I best manner of legal writing.
In the spirit the well-known expression, education is somewhat wasted on
the youth. I discovered that not only was I able to follow and keep up with complicated
material at the “old” age of 60, I actually understood and absorbed it better
than I did then. To clarify, my discovery was that my many years of experience
translating contracts as well as the immediate need to apply my learning
allowed me to achieve more learning. Far from age being a disadvantage, I not
only still “have it” but am much a better law student today than I was then.
For the record, my average on the course was 86 but the main satisfaction was
proving to myself that I was still capable of formal learning.
The course also calmed any doubts I had had about my choice then to not
continue law school. I completed the year not on probation. Those that went to
law school will understand the significance of that. However, after 3 days, I already
understood that I lacked any of the main motivations to become an attorney,
specifically, the drive for money, fame or justice. The knowledge I gained from
that year helped me greatly in my second career but I do not claim that I knew
that at the time. Nothing in life is wasted, including seemingly irrelevant
knowledge, but we do not know when we will need it. This course resurrected
the mixed feeling of the love of legal theory and language and a lack of interest
in actually working as an attorney. As I wrote in a previous post, intuition is generally correct.
Finally, the course material, both that previously known and that new to
me, reinforced my belief that legal language in English, like all text in
English, can and should be clear and accessible. Steven Erikson wrote that tradition
was the last bastion of fools. Clearly, fools did not write legalese but there
is no justification today for writing texts that only judges and attorneys can
understand. Part of the course involved understanding and rewriting contracts
and regulations in such a manner that not only simplified the language while
retaining the content but also brought out inconsistencies and omissions in the
original text, which had been long lost in the circuitous phasing. With this knowledge,
I will confidently apply plain but correct language in my translations and
strive to educate other translators that “garbage in, garbage out” is not an
effective strategy either for the legal customer or translator. I now am fully
certain that legalese can be understandable to lay people without losing
precision.
Thus, with no homework this Saturday and feeling “free” just like any
student after the end of the semester, I look back on my course on writing
contracts with great satisfaction in regards to my understanding then and now.
Furthermore, I intend to share my knowledge of the relevant techniques with
others at any opportunity. Education is growth at any time of one’s life.
For those interested in more information on plain English in legal writing,
I will be giving a 2-hour workshop at the Translation and Localization Conference
at the end of September.
* Picture subtles help the blind access the Internet.
Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/elstef-3091248/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5298416">Elstef</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5298416">Pixabay</a>
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