clear legal content for business benefit

Legal content

Why legal content is important and how to improve it for business advantagewww.simplifiedcommunication.co.uk

What is legal content?Content that creates an agreement and legal obligation. Content that is heavily affected by laws and regulations.

A meeting of the mindsVisit www.simplifiedcommunication.co.ukCopyright belongs to Simplified.

Talk about laws giving effect to this.Also talk about how governments are increasing laws as consumers are being screwed or at risk of being screwed...

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This is how youll screw me if something goes wrong.Long and boringDont know. Dont care.

Consumers feel it has little or no valueVisit www.simplifiedcommunication.co.ukCopyright belongs to Simplified.

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To corporations... its a necessary evil

Gets in the way of sales Expensive to change and maintain Protects us against those consumers out to get us

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But legal content is becoming more important:Because consumers are becoming more protected by laws and regulations (for example, the Consumer Rights Act of 2015), legal content is no longer restricted to terms and conditions. Promotional content is now often also seen as part of an agreement between a consumer and a corporation. This means that Legal and Compliance are starting to take an interest in content that was previously outside their scope.Because of increased awareness of issues such as privacy and security, consumers and businesses are more interested in legal content than ever before.



Here is a rewrite of the document below which sets out the rights of an arrested person in South Africa:

To make this content clear, we had to make it inclusive - a group of volunteers worked to create prototypes in different channels and different languages:1Voice2Mobi3Paper

1Voice


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What would the inclusive versions of these terms and conditions look like?




There are consequences of poor legal content:Business consequences: reputational damageBrand consequences: unprofessionalismEthical consequences: unfair and misleading Legal consequences: imprecise and, in fact, often illegal



Statement from Consumer Council, NorwayEnd user agreements are long and hard to understand.

iCloud terms and conditions are convoluted and unclear.Visit www.simplifiedcommunication.co.ukCopyright belongs to Simplified.

Working with Legal and Compliance to improve legal content means many stakeholders, for example:BusinessInternal complianceLawyers internal and from a law firmVisit www.simplifiedcommunication.co.ukCopyright belongs to Simplified.


To reduce risk of litigation or reputational damage.But often the objective is singular:Visit www.simplifiedcommunication.co.ukCopyright belongs to Simplified.

The only successful approach is a highly collaborative process

ScenariosTerminology workshopsRewrite clauses independently of each other (as modules)Present and discuss in personGet formal sign-offIncorporate toneGet formal sign-offTag, structure, situate in content strategyA collaborative process


Scenarios (if then)For example:

Jill wants to know if she can trust you as an online brokerage what safeguards are there to prevent excessive fee increases over time?In five years time, there is a market crash. Jill sees her investment value plummet. What is she likely to do?


A collaborative processScenariosTerminology workshopsRewrite clauses independently of each other (as modules)Present and discuss in personGet formal sign-offIncorporate toneGet formal sign-offTag, structure, situate in content strategy

We do a workshop activity called circle wordsWe ask workshop participants to circle all jargon and complex wordsWe then separate out jargon or terms of art (words with technical or legal meaning) from unnecessarily complex words We explain or replace all jargonWe replace all unnecessarily complex words


We draw a strong distinction between legalisms (jargon) vs legaleseA legalism is a term of art. It has a specific legal meaning, which you have to understand, respect and deal with.

Examples:Deeming provisionsLiabilityForce Majeure or Acts of God


Deeming provisions: I deem you to have understood this presentation.

I am going to treat you as if you have understood this presentation.

You are liable for the cost of my cake.

You are responsible for the costs of my cake.You must pay for any cake that I buy. If you do not

Force Majeure or Acts of God

Events beyond our control or events beyond your or our control.

Unnecessarily complex words - legaleseUnlike terms of art or legalisms, legalese has no specific legal meaning. They just mean what they mean, so usually you can replace them:Henceforth, aforesaid, subsequent to, subject to, set forth hereunder, hereofNotwithstanding the generality of the foregoingMandatory, applicableExpiry, termination, commencement, prior


Explaining Force majeure or Acts of GodI have been made aware that the Company will maintain procedures for disaster recovery in the event of a catastrophe. The Company will have no liability for any loss that results directly from a force-majeure or from the lack of electricity supply or such other resources over which the Company has no control.

No responsibility for events beyond our control (force majeure)We are not legally responsible for any loss that you or any other person suffers because of circumstances beyond your or our control. Examples of these circumstances are natural disasters, poor weather, power outages, war, strikes and government intervention. This is referred to as force majeure.

We have taken reasonable measures to protect ourselves against these events. We have put in place technologies and processes that are designed to allow us to recover as quickly as possible if there is a disaster.





Collaborative process

ScenariosTerminology workshopsRewrite clauses independently of each other (as modules)Present and discuss in personGet formal sign-offIncorporate toneGet formal sign-offTag, structure, situate in content strategy

Conclusion: legal content is contentLaws and regulations to protect consumers are increasing. This makes it essential to collaborate better with Legal and Compliance. Use a defined process when collaborating.

References and acknowledgementsCheryl Stephens: How to get lawyers to use plain language and be cooperative , Journal #66, Clarity InternationalMichele Sohn (Spoke) designed this presentationCandice Burt (Simplified) contributed contentCopyright belongs to Simplified

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clear legal content for business benefit

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