Redacción jurídica en Inglés Claro

Clase I.

• What is Plain Language?
• How does Plain Language relate to Legal English?
• Why does Legal English have to be plain?
• The National Center for State Courts (CA).
• Plainlanguage.gov (US).
• The American Bar Association (US).
• The Plain Language Commission (UK).
• Economic impact of Plain Language.
• Plain Language definition and introduction.
• An exercise from intuition.

Clase II.

• ISO 24495 on Plain Language: scope.
• Governing principles and guidelines.
• The reader.
• The four governing principles (relevant, findable, understandable, usable).
• Autonomy and interactivity of principles.
• Exercise: identifying compliance or non-compliance of the principles in texts.
• Writing exercise: short text that complies with the four principles.

Clase III.

• Principle 1: Relevancy: readers get what they need.
• Overview.
• Identify readers.
• Identify readers’ purpose/s.
• Identify the context in which readers will read the document.
• Select document type and content.
• Other rules.
• Exercise: we analyze a document and decide if these guidelines were applied.
• Writing exercise: we debate these guidelines and apply them to a short text.

Clase IV.

• Principle 2: Findability: readers can easily find what they need.
• Overview.
• Structure of documents.
• Design techniques (legal design).
• Headings to help reader’s predictability.
• Organization of main and supplementary information.
• Exercise: we analyze a document and decide if these guidelines were applied.
• Writing exercise: we debate these guidelines and apply them to a short text.

Clase V y VI.

• Principle 3: Understandability: readers can easily understand what they find.
• Overview.
• Vocabulary: technical words vs. familiar words.
• Use of clear and concise sentences.
• Use of clear and concise paragraphs.
• Including images and multimedia.
• Choosing a tone/style.
• Ensuring the document is cohesive.
• Exercise: we analyze a document and decide if these guidelines were applied.
• Writing exercise: we debate these guidelines and apply them to a short text.

Clase VII.

• Principle 4: Usability: readers can easily use the information they found.
• Overview.
• Continuous evaluation.
• Evaluate understanding with non-lawyers.
• Evaluate how readers would use the document.
• Exercise: we analyze a document and decide if these guidelines were applied.
• Writing exercise: we debate these guidelines and apply them to a short text.

Clase VIII.

• Exercises: we review the exercise we wrote intuitively in class one and see how we applied the principles (or no). We agree to write a short text (a brief, an insurance policy, a legal opinion).
• Role play: based on a short text, we explain a legal situation to a non-lawyer client.