Under the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, does prosecutor Mark Rencher deserve to be disciplined by the state bar for dishonesty when--at the police's request--he lied to a dangerous fugitive by saying he was a public defender, when the fugitive was holding hostages, and when Rencher also talked the fugitive into surrendering without harming the hostages?
This style is better than the “whether” style because it is a complete sentence. But it still produces long, complicated sentences.
posted by Wayne Schiess at 9:41 AM
Name: Wayne Schiess
[Plain language] has a bad name among some lawyers. This is usually because they don't understand enough about it to judge it properly. --Michele M. Asprey, Plain Language for Lawyers 11 (2d ed., Federation Press 1996).
A related bonus of a plain language style is the potential for reducing mistakes. Traditional legal language tends to hide inconsistencies and ambiguities. Errors are harder to find in dense and convoluted prose. Removing legalese helps lay bare any oversights in the original. --Peter Butt & Richard Castle, Modern Legal Drafting: A Guide to Using Clearer Language 89 (Cambridge U. Press 2001).
Legal writing, plain English, legal drafting, legal citation, persuasive writing, CLE, plain language.
