Christopher Balmford¹

At the Heart of Communication The Plain Language Association International (PLAIN)² 4th International conference. Ramada Hotel and Suites, Toronto, September 26 - 29, 2002.³

1. Introduction

For hundreds of years, people have bemoaned the unintelligibility of legal documents and campaigned to make them clearer. Increasingly, that activity has been described as a movement—the "plain-language movement".⁴

Yet talking about plain language as a "movement" (in the sense of a quasi-political, society-changing cause) seems odd and out of date given that:

• many of the people championing the cause make their living from their plain-language activities (which is fine—but sometimes creates a mild conflict of interest); and

• many commercial organizations use plain language as a distinguishing feature, or provide plain-language related services (even though most of those organizations aren't remotely interested in championing the plain-language cause).

In this article, I review the state of play on the plain-language front and attempt to show that plain-language is a movement no longer. Instead, it has evolved to become a product, a business, an industry, or a professional service. Then I move onto consider how the evolution of plain language affects law firms, their clients, and the State's relationship with its citizens.