Federal judge orders lawyers to stop using legalese

The ABA Journal reports that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel of Minnesota is fed up with lawyers who use superfluous words and too much capitalization, and he has directed them to stop it. Taking a stand against legalese such as "Now comes the Plaintiff . . . " and in favor of plain English, Judge Kressel has written some guidelines for lawyers preparing proposed orders in his court.

Kressel also observes that “lawyers love to capitalize words. Pleadings, including proposed orders, are commonly full of words that are capitalized, not quite randomly, but certainly with great abandon. Please limit the use of capitalization to proper names. For example, do not capitalize court, motion, movant, debtor, trustee, order, affidavit, stipulation, mortgage, lease or any of the other numerous words that are commonly capitalized.”

You may not practice in Judge Kressel's court, but his argument for plain English is worth reading and is guide is excellent. You can download his PDF handbook here in Jeanne's Toolbox. The ABA Journal article is here: 'Judge Orders Lawyers to Stop Using Capitalization 'With Abandon.'