Plain Language Translations of American Divorce Law
161person, a corporation, or a government can be a plaintiff. In divorce law, it
is acceptable to define “plaintiff” or, in this case, “petitioner,” as “the
person who first files the lawsuit.” There is no loss of meaning in this
simplification, at least in the context of divorce law, since only human
beings can be married and divorced.
As basic level terms are more recognizable by a broader segment of the
population, these should be used in any plain language document. If a
higher level term is absolutely necessary, it should be defined using basic
level terms. Plain language does not rely exclusively on using short words,
and indeed it should not. The word “loan” and the word “lien” have the
same number of letters. The first is a basic level term that most every child
learns readily. The second is a complicated term that implies a business
and legal understanding of secured instruments.
The table below is part of a glossary, created by the Washington State
Access to Justice Board Pro Se Project’s Forms Review Work Group, to
help resolve word choice issues uniformly across different forms (Dyer
2014). Many words can be replaced relatively easy, with more accessible
plain language terms.
Original Plain Language
admit/deny agree/disagree
adopt approve
attorney lawyer
comply with obey, follow
decree order
determine (validity of a marriage) decide
dissolve (marriage or domestic partnership) end
dissolution divorce
students are often taught shorthand symbols for plaintiff – “P” or sometimes “Ȇ” –
and defendant – “D” or “ǻ”. These symbols routinely follow lawyers throughout
their career. Other specialist terms become just as regularly meaningful. Specialists
forget to be concerned about translating them into ordinary basic terms for others.
Might it be suggested that these terms are then “hard wired” into the brain, i.e.,
used so commonly that neural paths are accentuated, and access to cumbersome
definitional neural sets are only used when specifically needed. The routine
development of semantic memory from episodic memory would seem to suggest
that such a process would be the logical development for those who use the same
words regularly, no matter how obscure their definition might be to others.