Reason, free from jargon
Legal language is everywhere, but it does not have to be confusing. Laura Copestake and Rachel Edwards show ways to make legal writing clear so that everyone can understand their rights.
Elle Woods from Legally Blonde once said, “Law is reason free from passion.” While we admire many things about Elle, at Content Design London we say law should be reason free from jargon.
Legal language is everywhere. You’ll come across it in some form on most websites, whether it’s cookie notices, privacy policies, or the small print hiding in the footer. And while this language is often hidden away, that does not mean it’s not important.
Other times legal language is actually central to what we’re trying to do, like:
- opening a bank account,
- arranging family legal matters,
- writing a will,
- buying a house,
- understanding our rights in a dispute.
Whichever situation we are in, legal language can make already stressful and time consuming activities even harder.
But we should not just accept that legal language is confusing and beyond our understanding. Instead, we want to encourage clear legal language. It takes time, but it’s not impossible.
Why clear legal content matters to users
Most people come to legal content when they are stressed, anxious, or worried about something. We know that stress impacts how our brains work - we’ve written about this in our blog post ‘Using trauma informed principles in content design’. We also know that people looking at legal content are trying to find, do or get something.
So it’s really important that we make that easy for them to do, and take away some of the friction.
Content designers make content clear, accessible, and user-friendly. But the content also has to be accurate.
Why clear legal content matters to legal specialists
Legal specialists, for example lawyers, judges and mediators, are word specialists too. They will spend years studying the importance of using the right word in the right place, and argue entire cases around this.
Legal specialists might want to keep legal definitions in content so it remains precise. But they might do this without giving a clear explanation of what it means.
Legal specialists and content designers are often coming to this content with the same intention: clarity. The problem is how to make that content clear for all users.
Resources you can use to create clear legal content
If you do not have access to in-house legal specialists, you can try:
- finding synonyms for complicated words,
- using the Hemingway Editor to test the readability level of the content,
- reading the Plain English Campaign free guides,
- looking at other websites with similar content and seeing what they are doing,
- working with other people in your organisation, like policy or subject matter experts,
- visiting government or charity websites to see if they can explain concepts or terms clearly.
If you can, it can help to work with other people to make your content clearer. Ideally, you can establish a relationship with your legal colleagues, if you have them. Take the time to understand their concerns and their priorities for the content. You might want to explain your role, and how you’re advocating for the user. Once you’re ready, start pair writing.
Pair write
In a pair writing session, the content designer’s role is to focus on the readability and accessibility. Your legal colleague should advise on the accuracy. But you will need to work together to make accurate, clear content.
Readability can often be improved by using simpler words. Can you try:
- ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’,
- ‘so’ instead of ‘hence’,
- ‘also’ instead of ‘furthermore’ or ‘in addition’.
In some cases words will have specific legal meanings and you cannot substitute them. In that case, can you explain what you mean?
Legal sentences are often long, broken up by commas or semicolons. Can you break them into shorter sentences?
Bullet points can also be helpful. Look at the differences between these 2 sentences:
- Unless it says otherwise in these Terms and Conditions, no part of the Site may be copied, reproduced, aggregated, republished, uploaded, posted, publicly displayed, encoded, translated, transmitted, distributed, sold, licensed, or used for any commercial purpose whatsoever.
- Unless it says otherwise in these Terms and Conditions, no part of the Site may be:
- copied,
- reproduced,
- aggregated,
- republished,
- uploaded,
- posted,
- publicly displayed,
- encoded,
- translated,
- transmitted,
- distributed,
- sold,
- licensed,
- used for any commercial purpose.
Do not assume the knowledge of the person reading your content. The content might feel straight forward to you, but for someone who is new to the topic it might not be.
Where you can, test with users and ask what words or terms are difficult or confusing. If you need to keep them in the content, can you explain them?
‘It takes 2: how we use pair writing’ from the GDS blog shares some useful tips for pair writing.
Start small and track the benefits
Start small with improving 1 piece of legal content. Getting legal teams onboard with big changes can be difficult. Starting with 1 piece of content and tracking the success of that can help show the benefits of content design to other legal teams and can make them more open to reviewing other content.
If you can, monitor that content. Are you getting fewer questions about the topic? Are you spending less time explaining what it means? These are signs that your content is working for both your organisation and your users.
We also have a blog post on how to show your advice content is working.
In closing
Review and improving legal content can be a balancing act between what users need and what legal specialists need. The important thing to remember is not to worry if content is not ‘fixed’ overnight. Legal content sometimes takes years to draft and get sign off, this work is a marathon not a sprint!