New year, new role

I’m beginning a few new things this year, one of which is teaching Editing for Plainer Legal Writing for the Plain Language Academy. I’m excited about teaching online — I’ve presented at conferences and workshops, but teaching online is new to me.

Not everyone who holds a pen (keyboard) on legal writing is trained as a lawyer or a paralegal, which is fine for many purposes. I have edited public legal information and non-profit organization bylaws without the benefit of a law degree. But I know my skill set, and my work is checked by a lawyer to ensure the legal effect survived the editing process.

So much legal information is muddied by problems other than legal language — poor logical structure (or no logical structure), sentences that go on for days, and obscure language that serves no legal purpose, like “herein” or “whereby.” No one uses these words anymore in everyday communication, and they have no legal effect.

I hope you’ll join me on my new venture and learn to make legal information clearer, even if you never go to law school.