Mark Adler

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About me
Comment
Redundant or not?
Full disclosure
Stressful ambiguity
Professionalizing plain language:
Introduction & Part 1: What is a profession?
Part 2: Can we certify plain language practitioners and create an institute?
Part 3: Should we …?
Apple pie-order
Judging styles
To unnecessarily split
What is plain language when there's more than one egg on the wall?
Best Practice is bad practice
Legal style through the ages
Conveyances
1853 conveyance
Text
Partial image
Backsheet image
1885 abstract
Image
Part of text compared
1936 conveyance
Text with plan
2013 transfer
Blank form
Wills
c.1000 CE: Wulfgeat
1854: Sir John Dodson
1970: A traditional precedent
2006: A modern precedent
My books and articles
Book
Clarity for Lawyers
Publication details
Availability
Publisher’s summary
Extracts
Contents
The purpose of the book
Foreword to the 2nd edn
Legalese wastes time … and money
Fashionable expressions and clichés
Precedent: explanation of joint tenancy
What the critics said
Updates
How many mistakes?
Severing joint tenancies
Book chapter
The Plain Language Movement in The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law
Publication details and link to OUP
Publisher's summary
Contents
Book contents
A list of my chapter sections, with a link to Plain language drafting techniques
(which is a slightly modified version of section 6).
Updates
Improving the rewrite
Full disclosure
Serving notice
A conference presentation
Legalese and plain language: how we might revise s.4(1) of the Appropriation Act 2008
Selected articles and notes
Obtaining by deception 1974
Bamboozling the public 1991
British lawyers' attitudes to plain English 1993
Alphabet soup 1993
Tried and tested: the myth behind the cliché 1996
Drafting snippets 1996
Solicitors' negligence: who pays? 1998
Eggbound 1998
Clear legal writing (for judges) c.2000
In support of plain law: an answer to Francis Bennion 2008
Drafting notes.pdf 2010
Why is legal writing unprofessional? 2011

Before-and-after examples
Will (annotated extract)
Court order (annotated)
Statement of claim (annotated)
Lease (extract)
Defence (extract)

The mutual wills problem
Notes
Downloads
Article
Specimen will (various formats)

Seminar ideas
Time flies
White space
Smoke puff
Laundry
Vague words
Amending in steps
Writing tips
Translation tips
Analysing text (example)
Drafting service
Training service
Quotations
Conferences
Copyright
Contact me