Speaker 1: Alright, and everybody knows that they can ask questions anytime, and you should feel very comfortable in this room. You're amongst friends. Okay, maybe not friends, but you're amongst colleagues that really want to hear your questions. Alright, let's get started. Look at the person next to you, and I want you to answer this question. What is your biggest challenge as a writer? What's the biggest challenge in writing legal English? Go ahead and discuss that for a minute. Come up with an answer. Okay, great. Alright, who would like to volunteer an answer? Okay, so I see. Okay, good. Now I know I'm not going to call on him the rest of the session, and I'm going to call on each of you individually. Okay, great. Okay, so understanding the communication norms across cultures. That's a big challenge for you. Okay, what is other ones? Anything else?

Speaker 2: Translating legal concepts that are very specific to the German legal system, and making it understandable to the others. Okay, making... Without losing the content, basically.

Speaker 1: Without losing the content. That's a very key statement. Thank you very much for saying that. Translating German law. That's a big challenge, right? But translating it in a way that people understand, and making sure that that content is not lost when you simplify it, or you translate it, or you change it in some way. Excellent. Well, we've come up with actually three ways. Three things that people get wrong, and three ways to fix this. These are the key skills of legal drafting. But then you say, well, what is it that partners pay us so much money to come here for? Well, because we teach you the appropriate tone, the correct usage, which includes grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation, and in a concise style. A short, clear style. But how to get to that goal, which is what the partners want, you have to know the golden rule. And today we're going to memorize the golden rule of legal writing, which is to help the reader get the content quickly and easily. It doesn't matter if you're translating German law, which is a challenge that Janneke is having, or what Max is talking about, translating across cultures. Every reader wants the same thing. I don't have to convince anybody. That's why my job is so easy. I don't have to convince you of anything. Everybody's already convinced once they put themselves in the position of the reader, right? Would you like to read something and make it easy for you and quick to understand to get the content, or would you like for it to take a long time? Okay, we all want the same thing, and your clients want the same thing, and your partners want the same thing. Help the reader get the content quickly and easily. Well, how do I do that? Well, we're going to find out. So getting the appropriate tone is the easiest way to, one, remove yourself so that the reader can focus on the content. Okay, well, what is tone? We're going to go through appropriate tone rather quickly so we can get to the fun, exciting stuff that you're all here for, which is grammar, right? Now, we're not going to spend too much time on that. On the desk in front of you is our materials bank for this workshop. These materials banks are based on my partner's book published by LexisNexis. It's one of the world's top books for legal writing. They're the reason why it is the top book for legal writing because there's hundreds of practical tips and advice and words in this materials bank that will help you throughout your career. I'm going to refer to this materials bank throughout the workshop today and make sure that you're aware of where to find the relevant material that's going to help you in the future. And the main thing is get rid of the legal style, okay? You can be formal, but you don't have to use legal style. Alright, what's legal style? Let's see if you can spot it. This is a real email from a lawyer to me. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, reference is made to. What about that whole entire reference is made to? Doesn't that just sound like a lawyer? Does anybody else talk like that? No. Okay, reference is made to, excellent. Would you like to give it a shot? Definitions, yes. Here and after, provisions, meaning that here and after, I'm using this, I want to be clear, this is what the definable term is, this is how it must be recognized. So including definitions with terms like here and after. Let me go for another person who hasn't gone yet. Young lady in the back here with the glasses. Yeah, you, the one with the black, all the way in the back. Yeah. What's another legal style?

Speaker 3: In light of the fact that the date for signing the contract shall be one week from today, that sounds quite like a legal style-ish sentence.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. In light of the fact that. In light of the fact that, right? In light of the fact that you haven't signed the document within the necessary time frame, right? This already sounds like we're already in court, but this is an email from a lawyer to a client. Okay? So these sounds, when we talk about legal style, dropping a legal style, we're talking about unnatural phrases, what my partner Chris Jensen calls unnatural phrases. But you can have your cake and eat it too. You don't have to get rid of the content, like definitions, you don't have to get rid of that, you can keep that content, but you can express it in a style that's more reader-friendly. Again, what was the golden rule of legal writing? It's not to make sure all of the definitions heretofore are absolutely correct and the client has full understanding of every aspect of everything the client must need in order to understand fully the implications of every single thing that needs to be said. Right? It's that we need to help the reader get the content quickly and easily. Okay, there wasn't very much motivation there, let me get a little bit more. The goal of legal writing is to help the reader get the content quickly and easily. Okay, everybody together. Help the reader. Yeah, a little bit louder, okay? We're going to do this as many times as we have to. Help the reader get the content quickly and easily. All right, now we're good. Now we're good. All right. Wait, wait, wait. I tell you when to give them Mozart, you can give them out that, but those are pretty easy so far. Let's get a little bit more complex. Their locations were pretty easy. I want to give out these beautiful Mozart criticals to the really sophisticated answers. Keep going.

Speaker 3: I would say a five-star hotel.

Speaker 1: Okay, a five-star hotel. And is there anything else you would do with a five-star hotel?

Speaker 2: I don't know. Put a...

Speaker 1: Put a... A ministry. Ministry? Yeah. Yeah, hyphen. Hyphen. Yeah, put a hyphen. Okay, now that's a good one. Now that definitely deserves a Mozart critical. Maybe it should be a six-star hotel instead of four. Okay? Not this time, but who can help him? Denise?

Speaker 3: I would say Mr. Jones has already been on a time loop for six years.

Speaker 1: Yes. Okay, and why would she use... Now this is going to solve this grammar problem that you've had since the time you were 13 and you were sitting in your English class and they taught you this back then and then they taught you this when you were 14 and then they taught you this when you were 15 and then you stopped listening.

Speaker 3: Since when you refer to a specific date of the beginning, for example. Yeah. Or when you refer to a period from the specific date.

Speaker 1: Exactly. So it's a range, a date range, isn't it? Isn't that simple? Now you know you're never going to make that mistake again. Now you know. Okay, so Mr. Jones has been, because we're talking about the present perfect, and we know this is one of the biggest challenges for German speakers because you don't have the same type of present perfect. Has been an attorney with the firm for six years or since 2013, right? So since 2013, a specific date, or for six years, a date range. How long have you been a lawyer? How long have you been a lawyer, Julius? I've been a lawyer for two years. For two years. And the golden rule of legal writing is to help the reader, everybody together, get the content quickly and easily. Okay, great.