Decoding Legal Jargon: Unveiling the Power of Legal Documents
Legal documents are notorious for being difficult to decipher, even for seasoned lawyers who find themselves stumbling over the dense and convoluted language known as “legalese”. The complexity of legal writing has long been a source of frustration for those outside the legal profession, leading many to wonder why legal language is so difficult to understand. While some may attribute this complexity to the need for precision in laws, leaving no detail unspecified but complicating language in the process, recent research suggests that there may be a deeper psychological purpose behind the use of legalese.
A team of cognitive scientists from MIT has delved into the intricate world of legal language, shedding light on the underlying reasons for its complexity. Contrary to popular belief, the researchers argue that legal language is not simply a byproduct of historical tradition or necessity in law. Instead, they propose that legalese serves a unique psychological function, akin to the mystical language used in magic spells, signaling a distinct kind of authority that sets legal writing apart from everyday language.
The Magic Spell Hypothesis
To test their hypothesis, the researchers conducted a study involving 200 non-lawyers who were asked to write laws and stories about crimes. The participants naturally gravitated towards using convoluted structures when drafting laws prohibiting crimes such as drunk driving, burglary, arson, and drug trafficking, while opting for plain English in their fiction stories. This pattern persisted even when participants were asked to revise their drafts, debunking the notion that legalese results from repeated editing.
The study findings support what the researchers refer to as the “magic spell hypothesis”. Just as spells are characterized by a unique style that distinguishes them from everyday language, legalese seems to convey a sense of formality and power that is inherently linked to its complexity.
Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study, explains, “People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that this is how laws should sound, and they write them that way.” This adherence to a specific style of writing laws suggests that legalese is more about signaling authority than ensuring clarity.
In a subsequent study conducted in 2022, the same team of researchers analyzed 3.5 million words from legal contracts, comparing them with movie scripts, newspaper articles, and academic papers. Their analysis revealed a consistent pattern in legal documents: lengthy definitions often interrupt sentences, a structure known as “center-embedding”. Linguists have observed that this type of construction significantly increases the difficulty of understanding the text, further emphasizing the intentional complexity of legal language.
“Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages,” Gibson notes.
In a series of experiments involving around 80 participants, individuals were asked to draft laws and then provide descriptions to explain those laws to visitors from another country. Participants consistently utilized center-embedded structures when crafting the laws, yet avoided this complex phrasing when writing the explanations. This shifting between complex and simpler language suggests that legalese is more about asserting authority than facilitating comprehension.
Gibson’s team is now delving deeper into the historical origins of legalese, exploring whether this complex language style has roots in early American laws influenced by British law. The researchers are even considering analyzing the Hammurabi Code, one of the earliest known sets of laws, to uncover similar patterns.
“There may be just a stylistic way of writing from back then, and if it was seen as successful, people would use that style in other languages,” Gibson speculates. “I would guess that it’s an accidental property of how the laws were written the first time, but we don’t know that yet.”
The hope is that this research will inspire efforts to make legal language more accessible. Despite decades of calls for plainer legal writing, little has changed. A better understanding of what makes legalese so impenetrable could finally lead to meaningful reform.
The findings of these studies were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In conclusion, the complexity of legal language, often referred to as legalese, serves a unique psychological function that signals authority and formality. Through a series of studies and analyses, researchers have uncovered patterns in legal documents that suggest intentional complexity in legal writing. By exploring the historical origins of legalese, researchers hope to inspire efforts to make legal language more accessible and pave the way for meaningful reform in the legal field.