Plain Language

The 1997 Clarity Awards

By George H. Hathaway

We started our Clarity Awards in1992 and for the first five yearsgave the awards for legal docu-

ments written in Michigan.' This year weexpand the awards to the federal level andto other states. We give our 1997 ClarityAwards for legal documents written or pro-moted by the Chair of the U.S. Securitiesand Exchange Commission, a committeethat rewrote the Federal Rules of Appel-late Procedure, legal-writing consultantsin Texas and Colorado, a Michigan staterepresentative, two Michigan circuit-courtjudges, attorneys from Chrysler Corpora-tion, attorneys from Ford Motor Company,the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors, andmany others. See Figure 1.

These documents prove that legal doc-uments can be written in reasonably clearlanguage without legalese, and that legaleseis not required by precision, complexity,case precedent, or statute. They also provethat it is not a question of can legal docu-ments be written in clear language without

legalese, or should legal documents be writ-ten in clear language without legalese. Theyshift the question to why aren't all legal doc-uments written in clear language withoutlegalese? These Clarity Award documentsgive reason to the language of the law, andthey shift the burden of proof from clarityto legalese. Lawyers who write in a clearstyle should no longer have to prove the"legality" of what they write. The burden ofproof should now be on lawyers who writelegalese to justify their archaic style.

The Language of the LawFor many centuries the language of the

law tended toward legalese that was differ-ent from the common speech. The reasonsthat lawyers gave for this were precision,complexity, case precedent, and statute. Butno one ever questioned whether legalesewas precise, helped to deal with complex is-sues, or followed case precedent or statute.The reasons behind legalese were like theEmperor's new clothes. People pretendedthey were there, even when it was obviousthat they were not. Documents written in

Figure 1-Clarity Award Winners

legalese were assumed to be "legal" regard-less of whether they made sense or not. Butdocuments written in clear language usu-ally carried a burden to prove to readersthat they were just as "legal" as documentswritten in legalese.

In 1963 David Mellinkoff started themodern plain-English movement in thelaw when he wrote his landmark book,The Language of the Law ("This is a begin-ning. The goal is nothing more modestthan the rationalization of the language ofthe law."). In this book he documented thecase against the claim of precision and infavor of using "the common speech, un-less there are reasons for a difference." Hefollowed in 1982 with Legal Writing: Senseand Nonsense, and most recently in 1992with Mellinkoff's Dictionary of AmericanLegal Usage. See Figure 2.

The Plain-English MovementMellinkoff's books form the foundation

for the plain-English movement in the law.We have discussed these books and theplain-English movement in many previous

Back Row (left to right): George Hathaway, John Juroszek, Frederick Blanchard, Carol Cousineau,David Daly, LuAnn Frost, William Kohler, Peter Cornell, Keith Beasley, Robert Nelson, Norman Shinkle,Peter Kopke, Kevin Foran, Charles Dmochowski, Larry Olivares, Joseph Kimble. Front Row: Roger Peters,Margaret Garvin Blanchard, Rep. Karen Willard, Judge George Steeh, Susan Elder, Mary Hiniker

Ford Motor Company Team (left to right):Peter Sherry, Douglas Cropsey, Kathryn Lamping,John Rintamaki, Lou Ghilardi.(Jack Martin not pictured.)

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articles.2 In recent years the movement hasbeen very active, not only in the UnitedStates, but also in Canada, England, andAustralia.3 This activity consists of two dis-tinctly different types of work. The first typeconcerns educational material such as text-books, articles, and seminars that recom-mend plain English. The second type ofwork concerns legal documents written inplain English in the actual practice of law.

It all starts with the educational mate-rial. This material is essential. But regard-

less of all the educational material, thereis still an implied assumption that if youwrite something in plain language, thenyou had better prove to all who read it that"it" is just as legal as something written inlegalese. In other words, if you write in aclear style, the burden of proof is still onyou to prove to everyone's uncertainty thatyou have written something "legal."

Even if you follow all the "how to writeit in plain English" books, the educationalmaterial doesn't carry the same weight as

legal documents written in plain Englishin the actual practice of law. And that's thekey. If it's used in the actual practice oflaw, then people won't question it. Youwon't have to prove time after time that

Figure 2-Quotes from Prefaces to Mellinkoff's Books

From Preface to The Language of the Law (1963)* [Tlhe principle of simplicity would dictate that the language used by lawyers

agree with the common speech, unless there are reasons for a difference .... If thereis no reason for departure from the language of common understanding, the spe-cial usage is suspect.

* This book tells what the language of the law is, how it got that way, and howit works out in practice.

* This is no crusade for the propagation of a new language .... It is an endeavorto make an existing language better perform its function.

9 This is a beginning. The goal is nothing more modest than the rationalizationof the language of the law

From Preface to Legal Writing: Sense and Nonsense (1982)* Drafting is another name for writing, and only serves to let some lawyers feel that

they can ignore the language and grammar of mere writers.e Most law can be expressed in ordinary English. Most of it is. But by the time

lawyers get through mushing up ordinary English, very few English speakers andonly some lawyers can recognize it. They throw in words that were headaches be-fore the age of steam. They try to get buy, stuffing law into sentences that aren'tbuilt to take the load. Instead of rejecting the rubbish and keeping the good in thelanguage of the law, they swallow it whole .... That's the way it is in the law books.That's the traditional way. That must be the precise way. It isn't.

* In The Language of the Law (1963), 1 documented the case against the claim ofprecision, and documented the case in favor of law using "the common speech, un-less there are reasons for a difference." The remaining reasons for a difference arefew, and apply only to the tiniest part of the language of the law.

* Some lawyers, and many more people, have become convinced that it is possi-ble and also important to write law pretty much in English, understandable English.Some of the language of the law needs translation. Some of it needs explaining.Law need not read like a novel, nor be reduced to grunts. It need not end up "plain"to everyone; few things are. But legal writing can do better....

* Before any improvement is possible, the old claim to precision must be recog-nized as myth, overawing good writers and giving bad writers the contentment ofthe halter.

From Preface to Mellinhoff's Dictionary of American Legal Usage (1992)e This is a dictionary of the language of the law as used in America today. Most

of this dictionary is written in ordinary English .... It follows the dictate of simplicity"that the language used by lawyers [should] agree with the common speech, unlessthere are reasons for a difference."

* [Only in comforting myth is legal usage peculiar so that it may be precise.Some technical terms.., are precise. More often, the swarming imprecisions of thelaw give only an illusion of precision....

David Mellinkojj

before is just as legal a word as the phraseprior to. In short, legal documents writtenin plain English in the actual practice oflaw are crucial to the success of the plain-English movement.

The Clarity AwardsTherefore, to promote plain English, we

give Clarity Awards not for educationalmaterial, but for legal documents writtenin plain English in the actual practice oflaw. To do this we first find the document.Then we find out who wrote the document.And then we give a Clarity Award to thewriter. The clarity of any legal documentcan be graded from F to A+. We give Clar-ity Awards to the documents that enoughpeople on our committee give at least a B+.It's a subjective opinion based on guide-lines such as our definitions of legalese andlegalese compounded,4 and our 36 ele-ments of plain English.5 Our goal is not tomake the Clarity Award the symbol of per-fection, and to award only one award to thevery best document in each category eachyear. We are not critics who come in afterthe battle is over and kill all the wounded.We want to encourage change, recognizeimprovement, and promote clear writing indocuments used in the actual practice oflaw. What better way to do this than toidentify and promote as many clearly writ-ten statutes, rules, complaints, sworn state-ments, contracts, deeds, and trusts as we

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Figure 3-Clarity Award Categories andSpecific Types of Legal Documents

1. Laws* Resolutions* Statutes* Executive Orders* Rules

2. Lawsuits* Complaints* Sworn Statements* Briefs* Jury Instructions* Judicial Opinions

3. Contracts* Consumer Finance Contracts* Construction, Sales of Goods,

Sales of Services, andEmployment Contracts

* Investment Contracts* Insurance Contracts

4. Real Estate* Listing and Sales Contracts* Deeds and Easements* Leases* Land Contracts* Notes and Mortgages

5. Estate Planning* Durable Powers* Wills and Trusts

can each year? We give our awards in 5general categories, which we subdivideinto 20 specific types of documents. Wethen give Clarity Awards for the followingspecific types of documents that have beenwritten in the actual practice of law. SeeFigure 3.

We give our 1997 Clarity Awards for thedocuments below.

In the Category of Laws:e Resolutions. 1996 House Resolution

302: It was written by State RepresentativeKaren Willard in clear language withoutlegalese such as the Whereas that typicallyintroduces each clause. After she submit-ted her resolution, someone made an at-tempt to insert the typical Whereas, but shefound out about it in time to have the res-olution published in the House Journal inplain English.

* Statutes. Three 1996 Michigan statutes:PA 193, Do Not Resuscitate Act, written byCharles Dmochowski; PA 199, Aquaculture

Development Act, written by Larry Oli-vares; and PA 263, Juvenile Boot Camp Act,written by John Juroszek. The writers arefrom the Legal Division of the LegislativeService Bureau. These statutes-written inreasonably clear language-disprove theexcuse that all legislation is difficult to un-derstand because it's all written at 3:00 a.m.in the heat of battle on the house floor.

e Rules. Proposed Revision of the Fed-eral Rules of Appellate Procedure. The Stand-ing Committee on Rules of Practice andProcedure, based in Washington, has pro-duced a plain-language redraft of the Fed-eral Rules of Appellate Procedure. Bryan A.Garner, the principal reviser as a consultantto the committee, has also written Guide-

Bryan A. Garner

lines for Drafting and Editing Court Rules,published last year by the AdministrativeOffice for the U.S. Courts.

Over the past several years, we have de-voted five columns to Mr. Garner's booksabout legal writing.6 But we are especiallyinterested in his CLE seminars on legalwriting, by which he trains more than5,000 American lawyers each year, includ-ing many in Michigan. These seminars-sponsored by LawProse, Inc. of Dallas-have persuaded many practicing lawyers towrite their documents in plain English.(See, for example, the sections below aboutthe Chrysler Consulting Contract and theFord Proxy Statement.) We will continue tofocus future columns on legal documentsthat can be considered direct or indirectproducts of Bryan Garner's seminars.

But as wide-ranging as Garner's activi-ties are in promoting better legal writing,he is proudest of his work on federal rules.According to Mr. Garner:

Improving the drafting standards for federalrules was the brainchild of Judge Robert E.Keeton and Professor Charles Alan Wright.The restyling of our various sets of rules hasbegun with the Appellate Rules. They're nowmuch better than in the past precisely be-cause many people have worked on themclosely, including the Appellate AdvisoryCommittee (led by Judge James K. Logan)and the Style Subcommittee (led by JudgeJames A. Parker). Each year I continue tolearn more about good legal drafting fromworking with all these fine legal minds.

Two federal rules: First the U.S. Depart-ment of Interior, Bureau of Land Manage-ment rule on solid minerals written by JimHoran, Annetta Cheek, Sharon Allendar,and Brenda Aird. We discussed this in ourFebruary 1997 column.7 And second, theU.S. Department of Interior, Minerals Man-agement Service rule on liability for royaltydue on federal and Indian leases, writ-ten by members of a team led by CeceliaWilliams in a style promoted by the team'swriting consultant, Tom Murawski, presi-dent of The Murawski Group, legal-writingconsultants based in Colorado Springs,Colorado. We will discuss Dr. Murawski'swork on federal rules in another columnlater this year. We are especially interestedin his work because it produces our re-sult-legal documents written in plainEnglish in the actual practice of law. Ac-cording to Dr. Murawski:

The Interior rules pioneered two basic im-provements: a quspton-and-answer ormat,4and you for whoever must comply Headingsare more informative now, and there's lesspassive voice. Writers praise the improve-ments for making regulatory drafting morelike everyday writing and speaking. Rulesin this style are wonderfully easy to read-promising greater compliance, stronger en-forcement, and less litigation. I questions andyou answers are encouraged in guidelinesissued recently to all federal agencies.

Cecelia Williams and Annetta Cheek illus-trate the difference that individual advocatescan make.

Cecelia, an attorney, backed plain Englishin my first rule-writing workshop. Later shehelped revise an array of other policies andprocedures. Plain English gets credit for adrop in appeals. An award to her agencyfrom Vice President Gore's office has givenclarity new status.

Annetta is taking plain English further Ather agency, where she runs the rules shop,she has begun a five-year effort to revise allregulations into plain English. She also leadsan effort sponsored by the Vice President'sNational Performance Review to get the rest

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of government to write readable rules. Vol-unteers from progressive agencies meet reg-ularly to write guidelines and prod the pow-erful. If that sounds naive, you need to meetthis tough cookie. If anyone can slay theforces of bloated bureaucratic bombast, DrCheek can.

Four 1996 Michigan rules: R 205.1283,Conduct of Tax Tribunal Hearings, writ-ten by Norm Shinkle and Peter Kopke;R 339.3211, Athletics Referees, written by

Susan Elder; and R 460.3409, Protection of

Utility Owned Property, written by KennethRoth and the Electric Rules Task Force.These rules prove that employees in de-partments of state government can writeadministrative rules in reasonably plainEnglish without legalese. Finally, R 493.20,Advertising, edited by Kevin Foran, fromthe Legal Editing and Publications Divisionof the Legislative Service Bureau. We rec-ognize Mr. Foran for his editing of this andother rules.

In the Category of Lawsuits:9 Complaints, Answers, Motions,

and OrdersMichigan Causes of Action Formbook.

This formbook, published by the MichiganInstitute of Continuing Legal Education(Mary Hiniker, Publications Director) and

edited by Deborah Gordon, Steven Goren,Kay Holsinger, Mark Hopper, Judy Keenan,Karen Mendelson, and Edward Pappas,contains over 50 clearly written complaints,a sample motion, and a sample order. Wediscussed this formbook in our January1997 column.8

Guilty Plea Form of Oakland County Cir-cuit Court, written by Judge Gene Schnelzand Court Administrator/Magistrate Mar-

garet Garvin Blanchard of the 45B DistrictCourt in Oak Park. We discussed this formin our March 1997 column.

* Judicial Opinions. An Opinion andOrder of Macomb County Circuit Courtwritten by Judge George Steeh is a modelof clarity. We also discussed this opinion in

our March 1997 column.10

In the Category of Contracts:e Sales-of-Services Contracts. A con-

sulting contract from Chrysler Corporation,written by David Daly, Logan Robinson(now General Counsel of ITT Automo-tive), and William Kohler. The contractwas heavily influenced by Bryan Garner.Mr. Daly says:

The plain-language movement took holdfor me afew years ago when Bryan Garnerheld two legal-drafting seminars at ChryslerOur General Counsel, Bill O'Brien, openedthe first seminar by reminding us that goodwriting is critical to our mission as Chrys-ler lawyers.

Plain-language drafting is useful in our in-ternational legal practice, since we routinelydeal with people who speak English as a sec-ond language. Well-written contracts helpus sell and service products, complete trans-actions faster and have more-satisfied cus-tomers. Time is also valuable to the Chryslerexecutives, lawyers, accountants, and engi-neers I work with in drafting documents. ifa document is clear and concise, they readit faster understand it better give bettercomments, and feel more satisfied with thefinal result.

* Investment Contracts. The Bell At-lantic-NYNEXjoint proxy statement/prospec-tus was promoted by SEC Chair Arthur

Arthur Levitt, Jr.

Levitt, Jr. We discussed this in our De-cember 1996 column." When educationalmaterial and seminars aren't enough topersuade lawyers to write in plain English,we need leaders like Arthur Levitt to con-vince them to write in plain English. Thecritical need of the plain-English move-ment today is to find more Arthur Levitts.He is the perfect example of what we tryto find in our Clarity Awards search. Ac-cording to Mr. Levitt:

Investors depend on the written word-theyderive much of the protection of our federalsecurities laws through disclosure. The SEChas been vigilant in enforcing these laws,but unfortunately, over the years, anotherlaw has come into play: the law of unin-tended results. Put simply, our passion for full

disclosure has created fact-bloated reports,and prospectuses that are more redundantthan revealing.

We have to ask ourselves, how are investorsaided by the majority of disclosure docu-ments, which are only understandable tofi-nancial or legal experts? How can investorsenjoy the protection of our laws, if they can'tfathom the documents that describe invest-ments? I've been around our markets formost of my life, and I can't understand muchof what passes for disclosure.

The fact is that disclosure has two aspects:the information that is made available to in-vestors, and the information that actuallygets across to investors. We have excelledat the first part; we now need to focus onthe second. We need to acknowledge thatdisclosure is not disclosure if it doesn'tcommunicate.

The SEC is not alone in recognizing thisproblem. I can't tell you how many times, inthe town meetings we've held across Amer-ica, investors have stood up and requested,argued, pleaded with me for documents thatare useful and easy to read. Making disclo-sure documents more readable is especiallyimportant today, in the 1990s, which havewitnessed a mass migration of investors intoour markets. More than one in three Ameri-can households now invest in the market,directly or indirectly Many people today in-vest to secure their retirement years. For allthese investors, plain English is not a nov-elty, but a necessity.

Many lawyers and corporate officials sup-port plain English as well. They agree thatthe time has come to jettison the legalese andspeak plainly to investors. They understandthat plain English does not mean "dumbingdown," or leaving anything important out ofa disclosure document. It just means pre-senting complex information clearly.

Indeed, in our campaign to promote plainEnglish, we have been joined by members ofthe securities industry and the securities barevery step of the way We recognize that plainEnglish will not succeed unless we worktogether After all, the SEC's own rules andcommunications are among the reasons whyplain English has not taken root sooner We'rehardly in a position to throw stones. Forplain English to survive and flourish, wemust work together for the good of investors.

Our joint efforts began with the profile formutual funds. Eight major fund familiesstepped forward to volunteer for a pilot proj-ect to develop a standardized summaryprospectus that highlights key informationabout a fund. This new document, and aclearer fund prospectus, will enable investorsto choose the disclosure option that best suitstheir needs.

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Early last year we extended our efforts toinclude corporate disclosure. The Division ofCorporation Finance, with help from ourOffice of Investor Education and Assistance,began a pilot to promote the use of plain Eng-lish. We worked closely with companies tocreate new documents, pledging not only toreview these documents in an expedited man-ner but also to give our comments back inplain English.

The companies that volunteered for thispilot, and especially those that produced thefirst public documents, deserve our deepestthanks. It's never easy to be first. Several pi-oneers are Kathleen Gibson from Bell At-lantic and her counsel, Jim McKenzie fromMorgan, Lewis & Bockius; Peggy Foran fromITT Corporation; Susan Wolffrom BaltimoreGas and Electric Company; and Brian Lynchfrom Morgan Lewis, who worked on Uni-source. Your major successes with plain Eng-lish are reverberating throughout our entiredisclosure system. Thank you for your visionand your commitment.

Our volunteers' ranks are swelling, and in themonths ahead we will have many more ex-amples of plain-English filings.

Through these pilot programs, we've gainedconsiderable knowledge about how to createplain-English disclosure documents. To as-sure a smooth transition and implementationof this rule, we have also conducted work-shops and our Office of Investor Educationand Assistance has compiled A Plain Eng-lish Handbook: How to Create Clear SECDisclosure Documents. This handbook fea-tures proven advice from our pilot partici-pants and others who have created plain-English documents, as well as a foreword byWarren Buffet. Simultaneously with the ruleproposal, we are issuing a draft of the text ofthe handbook to the public. We hope to re-ceive more helpful suggestions by releasingit as a draft, so that when we print it in final

George Hathaway is asenior real estate attor-ney at the Detroit EdisonCompany and chair ofthe Plain English Com-mittee of the State Barof Michigan.

"Plain Language" is a regular feature of the Mich-igan Bar Journal, edited by Joseph Kimble for theState Bar's Plain English Committee. The assistanteditor is George Hathaway, chair of the Committee.The Committee seeks to improve the clarity of legalwriting and the public opinion of lawyers by elimi-nating legalese. Want to contribute a plain Englisharticle? Contact Prof. Kimble at Thomas Cooley LawSchool, P.0. Box 13038, Lansing, MI 48901.

form in a few months, it will be as useful aproduct as possible.

The transition to plain English will not takeplace overnight; it is a process, incorpo-rating several steps. The proposed rule re-quires prospectuses to have cover pages, sum-maries, and risk factors written in plainEnglish. It asks issuers to use the hallmarksof plain English in those sections of the pro-spectus: active voice, short sentences, every-day language, tables, and no legal or busi-ness jargon.

We will begin with these key sections of theprospectus, but with the clear understandingthat our eventual goal is to purge the entiredocument of words that, in the famous phraseof George Orwell, 'fall upon the facts like softsnow, blurring the outlines and covering upall the details."

Ford Motor Company's 1997 Proxy State-ment was also influenced by the SEC'sdrive for plain English in corporate dis-closure. And the proxy statement is an-other good example of a collaboration be-tween business, government, and writingexperts that serves the public. According toDouglas Cropsey, from Ford's Office of theGeneral Counsel:

A number of people contributed to our plain-English proxy statement, including our VicePresident-General Counsel, Jack Martin;Secretary and Assistant General Counsel,John Rintamaki; and Ford lawyers DouglasCropsey, Lou Ghilardi, Kathryn Lamping,and Peter Sherry Because we volunteered toparticipate in the Securities and ExchangeCommission's plain-English pilot program,we also worked closely with Ann Wallaceand Carolyn Miller of the Division of Cor-poration Finance of the SEC, as well as withBryan Garner and David Schultz of Law-Prose, Inc.

Ford Motor Company's Board of Directorsand management realize that the proxystatement is one of their most importantways of communicating with stockholders.Hence the importance of having a proxystatement that is easy to read and under-stand. Our efforts to create a plain-Englishproxy statement were further supported bythe vision of Ford's Office of the GeneralCounsel to provide Ford with the highestquality legal services in plain English.

Ford was committed to creating a proxystatement that is visually appealing and easyto comprehend. We believe that by writingthe proxy statement in language that is eas-ierfor stockholders to understand, we canmore effectively communicate importantcompany information. The orderly and clearpresentation of the plain English formatshould improve stockholder understanding of

the very complex information that must beincluded in the proxy statement.

In addition to writing the proxy statementin language that is easier to understand,we incorporated a number of the plain-English formatting conventions to make thedocument more inviting: we used shorterparagraphs, an unjustified right margin, ajustified left margin, more tables and bullet-point lists, and more white space on eachpage. The result, we believe, is a vast im-provement in readability over proxy state-ments of prior years.

Ford's continuing commitment to plain Eng-lish also was reflected in the creation of FordMotor Credit Company's Red Carpet MotorVehicle Lease Agreement, for which membersof Ford Credit's Legal Office won a ClarityAward in 1996.

In the Category of Real Estate:* Sales Contracts. The Sales Contract of

the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors, writ-ten by members of the Ann Arbor AreaBoard of Realtors (Peter M. Cornell, CEO)and members of the Washtenaw CountyBar Association, is a great improvementin clarity over the hundreds of purchaseagreements, offers to purchase, and sales-agreement forms now in use in Michigan.All these documents are worded differ-ently from each other. The only similarityamong them is that they are all poorly writ-ten and contain much unnecessary legal-ese.12 If the Ann Arbor Sales Contract canmove away from legalese and toward clearlanguage, why can't other sales contractsdo the same?

The Want ListTo write a plain-English legal document

in the practice of law, you must have threecharacteristics-interest, ability, and cour-age. Many people have an interest in writ-ing well. It's common sense. The ability isthree-part. You must have the knowledgeto write plain English; you must recognizewhen to write it; and you must have theauthority to control how the document iswritten. Finally, you must have the courageto write it, when everyone about you ispraising the Emperor's new clothes.

Once someone has had the interest, abil-ity, and courage to either write or persuadesomeone to write a specific type of legaldocument in plain English, then others canuse this as a precedent and also write theirdocuments in plain English. And that'swhat we try to find-because once a doc-ument has been written in a clear style, the

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document becomes a precedent that re-moves the "burden of proof" yoke fromaround your copy of Wydick, Plain Englishfor Lawyers. Furthermore, once a clear stylebecomes accepted, you can then go fromthe defensive to the offensive and place theburden of proof on something written inlegalese. Is legalese as legal as somethingthat can be understood? And why don'tyou eliminate the legalese and write thedocument in a style used in Clarity Awarddocuments? Once Representative KarenWillard has had the interest, ability, andcourage to write a resolution in clear lan-guage without Whereas, why can't all leg-islators write their resolutions in clear lan-guage without Whereas. Once members ofthe Bureau of Land Management have hadthe interest, ability, and courage to write anadministrative rule in clear language, whycan't all state and federal departments writetheir administrative rules in a similar man-ner? Once Arthur Levitt, Jr. has had the in-terest, ability, and courage to convince theWall Street investment community and BellAtlantic to write a prospectus in plain Eng-lish, why can't all companies write theirprospectuses in plain English? To focus oursearch, we not only keep a list of ClarityAwards that we have given, but also keepa Want List of documents for which wewould like to give awards next year. Forten of them, see Figure 4.

ConclusionClarity Awards and Want Lists in legal

writing and medical terminology will helpachieve plain English in law and medicine.But we don't try to convince those profes-sionals who use their intelligence to artic-ulately elucidate vague excuses and half-truths to rationalize legalese and medicalesefor their own benefit. We find leaders inthese two fields who have the interest, abil-ity, and courage to write award-winningdocuments that give reason and clarity tothe languages of the law and medicine. U

Footnotes1. The Clarity Award, 71 Mich B J 430 (May

1992); Clarity Awards for 1993, 72 Mich B J692 (July 1993); Clarity Awards for 1994and Summary of Real Estate and InsurancePapers, 73 Mich B J 436 (May 1994); Clar-ity Awards for 1995, 74 Mich B J 440 (May1995); Clarity Awards for 1996, 75 Mich B J421 (May 1996).

2. Hathaway, An Overview of the Plain EnglishMovement for Lawyers, 62 Mich B J 945(November 1983); The Plain English Move-ment in the Law, 64 Mich B J 1236 (No-

Figure 4-Want List (of documents for future Clarity Awards)

venber 1985); An Overview of the Plain Eng-lish Movement for Lawyers... Ten Years Later73 Mich B J 26 (January 1994); The PlainEnglish Movement in the Law-A 1994 Up-date, 50J Mo Bar 19 (January 1994); Reviewof Mellinkoff's Dictionary of American LegalUsage, 71 Mich B J 944 (September 1992).

3. Duckworth and Balmford, Convincing Busi-ness That Clarity Pays, 73 Mich BJ 1314 (De-cember 1994).

4. Hathaway, The Clarity Award (After FiveYears), 75 Mich B J 1198 (November 1996).

5. Kimble, Plain English: A Charter for ClearWriting (Part Two), 71 Mich B J 1190 (No-vember 1992).

6. Gamer, Finding the Right Words, 67 Mich BJ762 (August 1988); Excerpts from A Dic-tionary of Modem Legal Usage, 69 Mich BJ1066 (October 1990); An Excerpt from TheElements of Legal Style: Rooting Out Sexism,70 Mich B J 942 (September 1991); Judgeson Effective Writing: The Importance of PlainLanguage, 73 Mich B J 326 (March 1994);An Excerpt from the Indispensable Book: Gar-ner's Dictionary of Modem Legal Usage, 74Mich B J 1062 (October 1995).

7. Hathaway, Plain English in Departmentof Interior Rules, 76 Mich B J 196 (Febru-ary 1997).

8. Michigan Causes of Action Formbook, 76Mich B J 86 (January 1997).

9. Michigan Judges Practice Plain English, 76Mich B J 326 (March 1997).

10. See previous footnote.11. The Word from the Securities and Exchange

Commission: Put It in Plain English, 75 MichB J 1314 (December 1996).

12. See, Plain English in Real Estate Papers, 72Mich B J 1308 (December 1993); Plain Eng-lish in Residential Real-Estate Listing Con-tracts, 70 Mich B J 1320 (December 1991).

13. Affidavits, 74 Mich B J 1199 (November1995).

14. Hathaway, A Plain English Movement inMedicine, 69 Mich B J 688 (July 1990);Shulman, Saunders, and Hall, High BloodPressure (Macmillan, 1987); Confused? Good.Some doctors and lawyers seem to want it thatway, Detroit Free Press, August 4, 1984, at1A (article about American Bar Associationworkshop on writing in law and medicine).

MAY 1997 MICHIGAN BAR JOURNAL

1. Yea, Nay, and Aye of U.S. Congress. We want to give a Clarity Award to the firstCongress that has the interest, ability, and courage to change the archaic Yea, Nay,Aye voting terminology of the Senate and House to a plain English Yes and No.

2. Whereas and hereby in Michigan executive orders. We want to give a ClarityAward to the first administration that has the interest, ability, and courage to changethe 150-year-old legalese format for executive orders to a clear plain-English format.

3. Certiorari of U.S. Supreme Court. We want to give a Clarity Award to thefirst U.S. Supreme Court that has the interest, ability, and courage to change thetitle of their Writ of Certiorari to Order for Certified Record.

4. Sworn Statements. We want to give Clarity Awards to lawyer/legal secretaryteams who use plain-English sworn statements in their lawsuit papers.13

5. Michigan Car Dealers Association Car-Sales Agreement. We want to give aClarity Award to the member of the Michigan Car Dealers Association who per-suades the organization to write its car-sales-agreement form in plain English.

6. Michigan Bankers Association Car-Loan Agreement. We want to give a Clar-ity Award to the member of the Michigan Bankers Association who persuades the or-ganization to write its car-loan-agreement form in plain English.

7. American Institute of Architects Contracts. We want to give a Clarity Awardto the first committee of the American Institute of Architects that rewrites their formcontracts into plain English.

8. Labor Union Contract. We want to give a Clarity Award to the first companyand labor union to write their union contract in plain English.

9. FNMA/FHLMC Mortgage Forms. We want to give a Clarity Award to the firstadministrator at the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal HomeLoan Mortgage Corporation who persuades those organizations to write their mort-gage forms in as clear a style as their note forms are written in.

10. High blood pressure in medicalese. Medical professionals favor plain Englishin the law-but not in medicine. 14 Yet, medical terms stated in medicalese ratherthan plain English unnecessarily complicate workers' compensation law, negligencelaw, and medical malpractice law. Therefore, as an example, we want to give a Clar-ity Award to the first Medicare administrator who has the interest, ability, andcourage to change the term hypertension to high blood pressure on the medical reim-bursement form for services provided by doctors and hospitals.

MICHIGAN BAR JOURNALMAY 1997