Having decided to make a serious effort with this blog, I thought I should start off by saying a few words about what I’m seeking to achieve by producing it. In one sense, that’s easy: it does exactly what it says on the tin, in that it deals with legal English in a Russian context. But the how and the why also deserve some explanation.
I’ll take the why first, and it’s because I think I’m as qualified as pretty much anyone to take this on. I suppose there’s a degree of vanity if anyone sets themselves up as an expert in a particular field, and I’m conceited enough to think I have something worth saying in this one. I have qualities which aren’t unique, but there aren’t many other people working in this area who bring everything to the table that I do.
I’m an experienced lawyer with a track record across a range of disciplines in commercial law firms, so I generally have a pretty sound grasp of the subject matter of the texts I deal with. I like to think I have high-level drafting skills. In any case, whatever talent I do possess in this direction has been honed in a variety of settings, including the UK government. There’s legislation on the statute book that I authored.
I work with texts in Russian, and the knowledge I have of that language is important when I come to review texts produced by native speakers of it. When people follow syntax and patterns of usage that would work in their own language but don’t in English, it’s a help that you understand what they want to say and know why they’ve written what they have.
Finally, I flatter myself that I write at least passably well in English. I certainly have an interest in trying to identify what makes written English good and to help explain that to people. That’s what I’ll be trying to do here, with particular reference to native speakers of Russian who produce legal texts. That’s a big part of what I do for a living.
During my work, I find myself quite regularly annotating documents to explain changes I make to the authors of the texts I’m editing. For that reason, I think there’s a demand for a web-based resource dealing with this topic. I guess I’ll find out whether I’m right by seeing whether I manage to attract any readers.
I’ll try to focus on a variety of things: matters of general style; approaches to translating and editing legal texts; specific points of grammar that are especially tough for Russian speakers; relevant legal drafting techniques; and occasionally some items for light relief. I’m generally inclined to plough my own furrow in life and I expect this blog to be no different, but I may be willing to pay heed to suggestions sometimes if they particularly grab me.
To round off this initial piece, I promised in my heading for this initial piece to offer the key piece of advice I’d stress above all to anyone producing legal documents in English. Don’t get too hung up about the subject matter: legal English is simply English, and if a piece of writing bears the hallmarks of bad English, the fact that it’s a legal text doesn’t change that.
I see legal texts in English all the time that seem to have been crafted to make them as pompous and complicated as possible. This doesn’t make them sound authoritative, just difficult to read and annoying. I’ll return to this theme, probably on a regular basis, as I go forward with this blog.
