Chapter Seven
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understanding for pro se litigants who might otherwise fail to include
items they should, but it also increases readability for the judge, who can
now rely upon information provided in a uniform and readable form.
Step by step
Numbered steps are a common and accepted feature of everyday life.
Indeed, most of the original Washington State forms contain numbered
steps, although the legal numbering system (1, 1.1, 1.1.1, etc.) is not
commonly known and can be confusing to litigants without lawyers. Plain-
language forms use numbered steps, too, but much more simplified. For a
second level of hierarchy, numbers such as “1.a” are used.
Plain language translators have also found that, if a third level of
hierarchy is required, it is usually because there is some particular non-
routine problem that is embedded within the logic. For instance, there are
special rules for handling divorces when one of the litigants is in the
military on active duty. In some cases, the translators employed a separate
form specifically for those instances, rather than complicate the original
form with extra levels of hierarchy. Or alternatively, the original form
would include a box that contains the special questions and a note that its
use is restricted to those instances that meet the special rule.
Numbered steps should be presented in a logical order that makes
sense to the reader. Components of forms that are relevant to each other,
such as financial data or information about children, should be placed
together in the step-by-step process. Similar numbered steps, appearing on
different but related forms, in similar locations on each form further
improves clarity.
The Washington State Access to Justice Board Pro Se Project has also
found it often useful to include a separate check box for “Does not apply.”
This check box informs the court that the party filling out the form has
considered the elements in question and determined that those elements of
the form are not applicable to his or her situation. Family law attorneys,
who are used to deleting inapplicable steps in a form, are now asked to
leave in the number and descriptive text of the step and simply check the
box that says “Does not apply.” This keeps the step numbers uniform in all
cases, and ensures that the judge and all the parties have considered all the
necessary steps.^9
(^9) In 30 percent of divorce cases, only one side is represented by an attorney, so
keeping in those steps is especially helpful to the non-specialist on the other side
(Dyer et al. 2014).