Sample from the Living Trust

One of over a dozen books written by Bryan Garner. 

It was a major influence on my professional work and since then, I've read several of his other books.

​I want to have clarity, thoughtfulness, and straightforward explanations in my  work. I want you—and your beneficiaries— to more fully understand your will and trust. 
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Legal drafting is a technical subject, and it has to be precise as reasonable, given the time constraints.  I aim for conciseness and to be understandable in all aspects of my work. 
 
Keep in mind that Massachusetts has an estate tax, so some documents need tax provisions. 
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But apart from these tax provisions, I work to eliminate many needless words that make reading legal documents difficult and even nearly impossible to comprehend. I don't always succeed. But I have this attitude.

The primary considerations of using plain English are:


• reduce unnecessary words—don’t use three words when one will do
• avoid words like 'herewith' or 'heretofore'
• use active, not passive wording
• avoid convoluted legal language
• use shorter sentences
• edit, edit, and edit again

 
Also, I want to format our documents by:
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• using headings;
• having more white space; and
• using a highly readable font.

What is Plain English in law?

​​I want you (and your family members after you) to more fully understand your estate planning.

While the legal documents that include those wishes are technical (usually tax-driven) documents with much required precise language, you can write them so people without a law degree can understand most of it.

​With you mind, I try to use simpler explanations, eliminate needless words, and use a typographically sensitive design to provide documents.

Plain English is a way of writing and making the time to edit to simplify

Lawyers' writing is notorious for being overly complicated and full of needless words and phrases.

For many years (centuries), the public has had this concern. For decades, legal scholars and attorneys have highlighted these issues.

I've been reading about the plain English subject for 15+ years. I work daily to improve my native, somewhat weak skills. 

Like most people, I don't enjoy reading legal documents that need a good, serious edit to be more readable. 

The theory behind Plain English

I consider attorney author Bryan Garner to be the leading advocate for a change to a more direct writing style.

He's written about 20 books, with his newest being 'Garner's Guidelines for Drafting & Editing Contracts.' 
 

• For an example of his approach, he states that lawyers who use the words 'said' or 'shall' in just about every sentence are misguided. Yet, it is the tip of the iceberg.

Another book I thoroughly enjoyed was Kenneth Adams' 'Adams on Contract Drafting.'

This book explains that in any legal document, we use roughly seven different categories of language. Each category serves a different function.

• One category gives the power to do something (the language of 'authorization'), another states a legal duty (the language of 'obligation'), and so on.

​My documents are plainER, not plain

I work hard to make my writing as clear as possible. (By the way, I try to find the time to edit and edit every day, as it is a consistent issue).

And, because some legal documents have intricate tax or trust law meaning, not all aspects of our documents are easy to understand without at least a second re-reading.  

These tax provisions are sometimes needed because Massachusetts and the IRS continue to have an estate tax.

To better deal with these facts, and to work towards lower estate tax, tax provisions are in some documents. Typically, it is the Massachusetts estate tax of assets over $1 million that is the biggest problem.

Your gross taxable estate includes all you own, in any form. Your estate  includes a residence, IRAs, 403(b), life insurance, and other assets.

In a nutshell, we need less than simple language for some documents. So, maybe 'plainER' better describes some of our documents.

However, apart from these special provisions, I work hard to eliminate much of the needless words that make reading legal documents difficult - sometimes nearly impossible. 

• I find that working in this particular urban locale (Boston and surrounding areas) that more and more people are educated and want to understand how their estate planning works.

We live in an area of the greater Boston area, with clients in Lexington, MA, and the nearby localities of Winchester, Belmont, Waltham, Lincoln, Bedford, Concord, Burlington, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, and Watertown, MA.

It is an area full of highly educated persons who like to understand what they are doing.

Lawyers use different approaches in their drafting of trust, wills, and other estate planning documents.

Here are some thoughts on revocable living trusts for residents near us in Lexington, MA, where I live and work.​
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• Plain English, not legalese: I've worked to reduce unnecessary words in our documents. Every day when I write letters to clients and other people, I work hard to edit and then edit again each time to write more directly.
• ​You may find the article in The Economist article on the topic of plain English.
• ​The New York Times agreed that plain English is the way to go.​
• ​​For example, I've eliminated the words 'said' 'heretofore' and 'herewith'
• ​These words - and similar ones - get in the way when we read. Using them can reduce the effectiveness of our documents. ​
• If you don't thoroughly read the document because it is utterly dull and challenging to understand, then this can easily lead to not knowing what the document legally does. 
• I (usually) don't use two or three words when one word nicely does the job. ​
• I'd instead not use the same word in English and French, just because lawyers did this in England --- hundreds of years ago.
• ​​​Active, not passive wording:  I prefer to write sentences that have a person taking action, rather than having something happen to the person.