Legal Lingo: Terminology and Syntax in Legal Documents

Whether looking at interviews with professional lawyers, or examining vast quantities of legal documents through corpus analysis, it is becoming clear that he problem of legalese has become rampant in recent years. And indeed, the complexity and incomprehensibility of legal documents has increasingly come to the public’s attention. This phenomenon can in part be attributed to the fact that legal regulation has become more complex as the practice of applying certain stipulations expands. Another contributing factor is the attempt to reflect more and more nuances and details in legal texts. However, as a result, legal documents – which already had a reputation for being somewhat convoluted – have become impenetrable not only to members of the public, but often to professional lawyers themselves. Accuracy is key in law. That means that specific terms sometimes need to be employed. Many of these are borrowed from scientific and other professional fields, which can lead to difficulties in understanding legal stipulations. This is particularly the case today, with society continuing to evolve. The emergence of new forms of social relations and institutions (and changes to older ones) have also complicated matters. Legal stipulations which are vague or even incomprehensible only serve to make legal regulation less effective. What’s more, there is the risk of violating the constitutional principles of legal certainty and equality before the law and the court. All these negative factors are in evidence in Russian law today, and efforts need to be made both in terms of theory and practice (particularly the practice of rulemaking).