1.1.
The Users of Commercial Contracts ^
1.2.
Perfect, Complex Contracts – or Good Enough, Usable Contracts? ^
1.3.
From a Reactive to a Proactive Approach ^
1.4.
Information Design: Plain Language and Beyond ^
Adding to the challenges is the deeply-rooted preconception that readers want to see documents that “look legal” in order to deem them legitimate.20 A similar (mis)conception is probably one of the highest barriers to the adoption of visual language in those documents: graphics don’t “look legal”.21 However, visual elements can play an important role in supporting understanding, sharing knowledge, and retaining information.22 Some thought leaders have gone beyond text in legal design. In Canada, recognizing the need for new ways to inspire public access to the law, the Government commissioned a White Paper proposing a new format for legislation in 2000. The White Paper by David Berman, a communication designer, also introduced the concept of using diagrams to help describe laws, noting that this concept is “revolutionary, and likely the most innovative information design feature in the new design”23 . Somewhat surprisingly, visual elements have recently made their way even to court decisions, both in Europe24 and in the United States25 .
2.1.
Early Experiments with Contract Visualisation ^
3.
Making Contracts Work for Clients ^
4.
References ^
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4.1.
Acknowledgements ^
Part of the work presented in this paper was carried out in the FIMECC research programme User Experience & Usability in Complex Systems (UXUS) financed by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and participating companies.
- 1 See, e.g. Siedel & Haapio 2011, Siedel & Haapio 2010, and Haapio 2010, with references.
- 2 Wikipedia contributors 2011. Information design.
- 3 Pohjonen & Visuri 2008, 82–84.
- 4 Ertel 2004, 62.
- 5 Hagerdorn & Hesen 2008 and Posner 2010.
- 6 Passera & Haapio 2011a and 2011b. – The same challenges apply to legal documents more generally, of course. Instead of plain language, most are written in legalese, or, in the question of the EU Commission, Commissionese. Currently, as stated by the Chair of the Commission’s Task Force on Clear Writing, text in Commission documents – even in public information booklets and web pages – is written so that “the man or woman in the street won’t want to read it, and our message will fail to get across.” Yet things may start to change: in 2010, the EU Commission launched a Clear Writing campaign. Its outcomes include a dedicated website and the “How to write clearly” booklet in 23 languages. (Strickland 2011, 15).
- 7 See the resources available at the Nordic School of Proactive Law website, http://www.proactivelaw.org. This site is maintained under the leadership of Professor Cecilia Magnusson Sjöberg, University of Stockholm. See also FN 1.
- 8 See Brown 1986, Brown & Dauer 1978 and Brown 1950.
- 9 Brown 1950, 3.
- 10 See EESC Opinion 2009. In addition to the English language version, the EESC Opinion is also available in all other official EU languages: 23 languages altogether. The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, under the leadership of Mr Jorge Pegado Liz, was responsible for preparing EESC’s work on the topic, and the Author of this paper, Helena Haapio, acted as Expert in this work.
- 11 Id. § 1.4.
- 12 The mission of the ProActive ThinkTank is to provide a forum for business leaders, lawyers, academics and other professionals to discuss, develop and promote the proactive management of relationships, contracts and risks and the prevention of legal uncertainties and disputes. See ProActive ThinkTank Mission Statement, http://www.juridicum.su.se/proactivelaw/main/thinktank/missionstatement.pdf. The number of people who have signed up has grown at a remarkable speed: from 12 founders in 2007 to more than 950 in 2012.
- 13 E.g. Siedel & Haapio 2011, Siedel & Haapio 2010, and DiMatteo, Siedel & Haapio 2012.
- 14 See Pohjonen 2006, 54: “In Proactive Law, the emphasis is on achieving the desired goal in particular circumstances where legal expertise works in collaboration with the other types of expertise involved. In Proactive Law, the need for dialogue between different understandings is emphasised.”
- 15 Adams 2008, xxv.
- 16 Adler 1991.
- 17 Kimble 2006, 13.
- 18 Plain Language Institute of British Columbia 1993.
- 19 Assy 2011.
- 20 Trudeau 2011.
- 21 Passera & Haapio 2011b.
- 22 Bresciani & Eppler 2010, Bresciani & Eppler 2008 and Eppler & Burkhard 2004.
- 23 Berman 2000, 23.
- 24 See Hovrätten för Västra Sverige 2009 (Court of Appeal for Western Sweden (Gothenburg), case number B 1534-08, 15.7.2009). The judgment includes two timeline images showing the chain of events that are crucial to understand the facts of the case. This judgment won the plain language award, the Plain Swedish Crystal 2010, not only for being written in a pedagogical and innovative way, having a clear structure, good paragraphing, clarifying summaries, and subheadings, but also for the fact that reading it was facilitated by bullet points and images. (Språkrådet 2010)
- 25 An Opinion by Judge Richard Posner of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals uses the ostrich metaphor to criticize lawyers who ignore court precedent. Two photos are shown in the Opinion: one of an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, another of a man in a suit with his head buried in the sand. See Posner 2011.
- 26 See, e.g., Brunschwig 2001.
- 27 See, e.g., Gunnarsson 2009, 72–80.
- 28 For examples of visualising the public procurement and contracting process, see the Scottish Procurement and Commercial Directorate’s Procurement Journey at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/buyer-information/spdlowlevel (click on Route One, Two, and Three to see the three different routes on the map) and Supplier Journey at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/Selling/SupplierJourney.
- 29 For early experiments with and examples of contract visualisation, see Jones & Oswald 2001, Jones 2009, Rekola & Haapio 2009, Mahler 2010, Barton, Berger-Walliser & Haapio 2011, Haapio 2011a, Haapio 2011b and Haapio 2011c. – One of the early pioneers, Susanne Hoogwater of Legal Visuals, has developed the Visual Contract Index, a legal “dashboard” for accessible contracts, waivers, and terms and conditions. See http://www.legalvisuals.nl/index-en.html and http://www.legalvisuals.nl/upload/flyer_visual_contract_index.pdf. In the UK, the NEC family of contracts for procuring works, services and supply, offers an example, along with the associated guidance notes and flow charts which assist in their understanding. For a sample, see Figure 1 in Passera & Haapio 2011b.
- 30 In 2011, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched a new “Know before You Owe” project aimed at simplifying credit card agreements so that the prices, risks, and terms are easier for consumers to understand. The CFPB website shows a simplified prototype credit card agreement and offers a database where existing credit card agreements can be viewed to compare. (CFPB 2011) – For further examples of projects aiming to simplify, for example, an online game’s terms of service, a rail network’s disclaimer, and a law firm’s standard terms of engagement, see the Clarity2010 blog, http://blog.clarity2010.com. See also OFT 2011.
- 31 The project looks into contracting in the Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster (FIMECC) as part of User Experience & Usability in Complex Systems (UXUS), a five-year research program financed by participating companies and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
- 32 According to Thomas Barton, Preventive/Proactive Law offers a different, and arguably deeper, way of understanding law, legal problems, and how lawyers can help clients achieve their goals. Barton’s article focuses primarily on one recurring barrier: “an exaggerated and largely unnecessary separation between the business goals that clients seek to achieve, and the legal methods by which contractual relationships are created and managed”. See Barton 2012. See also Cummins 2011 and DiMatteo, Siedel & Haapio 2012.
- 33 See Passera & Haapio 2011a and 2011b. – See also Brunschwig 2011 and IACCM 2011, with references.
- 34 See Haapio 2004 and Haapio 2009. As to a business manager’s and a lawyer’s different way to see contracts, with visualisations, see Haapio 2006, 155–163, especially Figure 2. Elements of a Contract – a Lawyer’s View, and Figure 5. Contract – Mind the Gaps!.
- 35 See, e.g., Cummins 2011 and Berger-Walliser, Bird & Haapio 2011.