Legal writing has two audiences. Most legal writing ignores one of them. The best legal writing serves both. This distinction is worth millions of pounds in a law firm, and it is almost never taught.
Scared. Confused. Received a letter, a notice, a contract written by someone who never thought about the person reading it. Needs clarity. Needs to know what their situation actually means for their life.
The court. The regulator. The other party's solicitor. Does not care about emotion. Cares about precision, legal basis, correct defined terms, accurate statute citation. Will exploit any ambiguity.
These two audiences appear to want opposite things. That is the illusion that produces most bad legal writing.
I have a Masters in International Trade and Commercial Law from Durham. First Class LLB from Calcutta University. I have spent my career at the intersection of law, technology, and business. And the thing I have learned — the hard way, watching both clients and cases suffer for it — is that plain English and legal rigour are not opposites. They are the same thing done properly.
Rigour means: exactly right. No more, no less.
Plain English means: exactly what is meant. No more, no less.
The conflict is not between precision and clarity. The conflict is between ego and communication.
Legal jargon — the real kind, the unnecessary kind — exists for one of two reasons. Either the writer does not fully understand what they are writing well enough to simplify it. Or the writer is performing expertise rather than demonstrating it.
When you genuinely understand something, you can explain it simply. That is the test.
At Lexl, we work with SMEs — small and medium businesses navigating UK legal and compliance requirements. GDPR. Employment contracts. Commercial agreements. Regulatory notices.
Our clients are not lawyers. They are business owners. A restaurant in Birmingham. An e-commerce brand in Manchester. A tech startup in Leeds. They do not have in-house counsel. They cannot afford a City firm. And they are drowning in documents that were clearly written by someone who never once thought about the person who would have to read and act on them.
So we write differently.
Every document we produce has to pass two tests. First: would a reasonably intelligent non-lawyer understand what this says and what it requires them to do? Second: would this withstand legal scrutiny in the relevant forum?
Both. Every time. There is no compromise on either. If you pass test one and fail test two, you have written a friendly document that will get your client in trouble. If you pass test two and fail test one, you have written a legally correct document that your client will not understand and may therefore not implement — which produces exactly the same result.
The practical way to do this is to write for test one first and then harden for test two.
Start with: what does this person need to know, and what do they need to do? Write that in the simplest, most direct language you can. Then review it against the legal standard. Where precision requires a specific term, add it — but define it in plain English the first time it appears. Where a clause needs to be more specific to be enforceable, make it specific — but explain why in a covering note or summary.
This takes longer than writing one-dimensional legal documents. It is worth every extra minute. Because the document that your client understands and implements is infinitely more valuable than the one that sits in their inbox unopened because they were too intimidated to read it.
The best legal writing is invisible.
The client reads it, understands it, feels informed and empowered, and acts on it correctly.
The system reads it, finds it watertight, and has nothing to challenge.
No one comments on the writing. The problem is simply solved.
That is the standard. It is achievable. And it starts with deciding that both audiences matter equally.
If your legal documents fail either test — too complex for your team or not robust enough for scrutiny — Lexl can fix that.