FORMALITY AND PRECISION IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE.

1. Formality.
The most important feature is the legal profession and its
language is formality. This formality reflects the serious and
technical nature of legal issues. Formality ensures that legal
documents and discourse are clear, precise and professional,
formality ensures that the legal languages maintains certain
unique structure which avoids colloquial terms and the use
of personal pronouns. The essence of this formality in legal
language is to ensure (1) clarity (2) professionalism (3)
objectivity
i. Clarity – Formality in legal language ensures that
languages used in advocacy, legal documents and
conversations which could involve complex concepts
are spelt out with clarity there by avoiding
misunderstandings and misinterpretations. This cannot
ensures that parties involved in a legal matter make
informed decisions having fully understood their rights,
duties and obligations.
ii. Professionalism: -Formal language, written or spoken
portrays, expertise, professionalism, legal professional
apart from their appearances, need to also be
emasculate in their speech, spoken or written. Careless
use of legal languages can cost heavily on the legal
professional’s career, thereby tarnishing his or her
professional reputation.
 iii. Objectivity: Decisions in law are reached based on
the provisions of the law and not upon mere opinion.
This is why the legal language has to be objective,
meaning clearly set out objectively in an impartial and
objective tone.
The formality of the legal language makes it unique and
distinct so much so that other laymen who are not members
of the noble profession may find it difficult to comprehend
thereby reserving the language to its members.
The legal language because of its formality also removes
familiarity between the writer and the reader and also
between the speaker and the listener. This formality creates
distance between the writer and the reader and speaker and
the listener intentionally to remove personal relationship.
That is to say the legal language is couched in an impersonal
tone or manner.
While being formal and clear, legal language leaves really
little room for flexibility which protects legal document from
being subjected to changes. Thereby ensuring stability in
meaning and precision which are relevant for judicial
proceeding. Depending on how you explain the above, these
could be seen as draw backs of the legal languages.
2. Precision: Formality of the legal language necessarily
dictates precision in the legal language in order to ensure
the much needed clarity. By precision we mean careful and
intentional choice of words that convey the exact meaning of
the words spoken or written. The legal language thus
demands a high degree of precision in languages in order to
ensure clarity. Precision in legal language is of great
importance in order to avoid mistakes and ambiguity whose
language spoken or written have the power to change the
meaning of contents of legal documents, create or diminish
obligations etc, for example the use of “May” and “shall” or,
the use of the words “and” and “or” etc. other examples
include “hereinafter”, “prima facie”.
 DISTINCTIVENESS OF LEGAL LANGUAGES

Apart from formality and precision in the language of the law,

there are other key features of characters that make it distinct.
The distinctiveness of legal English refers to characteristics of the
language used in the legal profession. Legal English is highly
technical and uses specific terms and phrases that are not found
in everyday use. This make it quite different from the way most
people speak or write in their everyday lives. It also means that
because of its characteristics, it may not be easily understood by
people who are not conversant with legal terminologies.

The Godfather of legal English David Mellinkoff has noted nine

ways in which legal English differs from common English. 1 These
are:

1. Frequent use of common words with uncommon meanings

eg. Consideration, party, action, hearing, Bar, bench,
appearance, brief, cost, Eviction, motions filled at clerk’s
office, issue.
2. Frequent use of archaic words- herein, hereinafter,
hereinafter before, hereby, hereof, herewith, hereunto,
heretofore.

1
David Mellinkoff, Language of the Law
3. Frequent use of Latin words- this has much to do with the
history of Britain and the legal tradition which is based on
common law. Examples abinitio, unitary, amicus, sinedie,
curiae, locus standi, mensrea, prima facie, subjudice (under
nole prosequi, judicial consideration, persona non grata,
adhoc, bonafide, caveat emptor, de factor, de jure, ex officio
by virtue of ones psotion inter-alia, modus operendi, prima
facie, quid pro quo.
4. Use of old French and Anglo Norman words which have not
been taken into general vocabulary eg. Court, appeal,
attorney, claim, demurer, evidence, pleas, plaintiff, attorney
general, fee simple absolute.
5. Use of terms of arts- it is is quite complex and are used as a
shorthand to certain terms and phrases ideas eg. The praise
“smoking gun” is used to refer to evidence that is strong and
conclusive. The phrase comes from image of finding a the
rper smoking gun at eh scene of a crime which implies that a
person holding gun is
6. Use of argot- argot is a type of jargon or slang that is specific
to certain types of profession. In legal language there are
many examples that describe certain incepts or situation
e.g. opposing court.
7. Use of formal words- This means legal language avoids using
colloquial words i.e. Informal words like acknowledgement,
action, arraignment, like using euphemism, informal words
are allowed when you are quoting witness. Other than this
 you must avoid slangs and informality e.g. jewelry, instead
of bling, marijuana instead of weed, stolen goods instead of
loot.
8. Deliberate use of words and expressions with flexible
meanings e.g. the word ‘reasonable’ can have different
meaning depending in the context is used. This allows for
nuanced interpretation of the law and flexibly in resolving
legal issues, another example is the word intent.
9. Attempts at extreme precision, in order to achieve this, legal
language uses complex and specific language uses complex
and specific language even going extra mile to define words
like “and” or “or” etc in order to be very specific on what it
means in order to avoid confusion and doubt. In order to
bring about precision, the legal language adopts the
legalese. By definition legalize, refers to the complex and
formal languages use in legal documents, it often includes all
the archaic words and obscure words and phrases as well as
long unpunctuated sentences this make the speaker or legal
document look and sound verbose and wordy.
While the use of legalese is meant to ensure clarity and
precision, it makes the speech or documents unnecessarily
complicated and confusing. That is why in modern times,
there has been a more to cause plain English to be used in
legal document. Melinkoff for a greater part has argued that
the legal language is dull and has since been among the
critics of legalese.
Other general features of legal language that can be found in
legal speech or document include.

1. Consistency which involves repetition of words throughout

the document e.g. plaintiff, defendant, complacent within,
suspect etc.
2. Objectivity; like said earlier because decisions are not
made based on opinion, letters of the law are couched in are
couched in an objective manner without any emotional or
subjective manner. It uses words that are unbiased and
neutral it thus avoid the use of personal langue by avoiding
pronouns like “I” or ‘You’. Instead it uses words like offeror,
offerree in contract, lessor, lessee in lease agreements,
tenant and landlord in tenancy agreements, plaintiff,
defendant in civil suits, accused/defendant and state in
criminal cases, transferor and transferee in trust, donor and
done in power of attorney etc.
 Paragraphing – paragraphs are a fundamental feature of
legal documents. Paragraphs are used to introduce new
ideas or topics. It provides structure to the document and aid
in clarity. It is not uncommon thus to find legal documents
having information broken down into separate paragraphs
with headings and sub-heading. These are aimed to help the
reader understand the document. A typical example of this
can be seen in legislative writing and agreements. These
paragraphs usually have headings and subheadings which
are numbered. They begin with capital letters and some are
 put in bold. These paragraphs encapsulate legalese. Usually
the paragraphs include introductory paragraph, definition
paragraph, descriptive paragraph, provisional paragraph and
conclusion paragraph.
 Juxtaposition – This is the practice of putting two or more
legal concepts, principles or rules side by side to highlight
the similarities or differences. For example in motion papers
we find written take notice that this court shall be moved on
or before the 12 noon to hear the application…, the company
shall take liability for damages within and without the
premises…, and or, the term shall include but not limited
to…, the Law shall have effect pursuant to and in accordance
with provision of the policy…, parties shall disclose all prior
and subsequent engagement with the subject matter in
dispute
 Bolding- Most paragraphs in legal document are put in bold.
It’s a formatting technique that is meant to draw attention to
certain expressions. These expressions would be written in
bigger and darker shade.
Bold expressions are meant for emphasis and they add
professionalism and glamour to the document. They provide
clarity and aid in giving structure to the document. It is no
wonder then that they are found in headings, subheadings,
introductions, beginning of new paragraphs and conclusions.