Assumption 2: that plain legal language saves money

Here the evidence is unequivocal and overwhelming. Many studies show that plain language is more "efficient" and therefore saves money.

By "efficient", I mean that plain language documents are easier to read and comprehend. Numerous organizations attest to saving substantial amounts of money by converting their documents into plain language. Insurance companies are a prime illustration: by rewriting documents into plain language, enquiries from customers about meaning are reduced; this allows the company to redeploy enquiry staff to other tasks. And by redrafting forms in plain language, error rates are reduced; this saves time and money for the company, and helps cut down frustration for the customer. Studies of other organisations - including government bodies - show similar results. To take a stark example: some years ago, British Post redrafted its redirection-of-mail forms. Before the re-draft, there was an 87% error rate when customers filled out the form. Royal Mail was spending over £10,000 a week to deal with complaints and to reprocess the incorrect forms. The new form reduced the error rate dramatically - so much so that Royal Mail saved £500,000 in just the next nine months¹⁴.