The Language of Lawyers: A European Perspective

Clarity of court proceedings is increasingly considered essential to both the efficiency and the quality of a modern judiciary. One particularly under-researched area is the language of pleadings, i.e., texts written by lawyers representing the parties in court. Building on the results of the AttiChiari project, the first part of the book contains chapters on recent legal reforms and the language of Italian lawyers, while the second part includes chapters on the language of lawyers in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Romania and the United Kingdom. With contributions from leading experts in the field, the volume combines legal and linguistic expertise in equal measure, as well as a substantial body of practical reflections by civil and criminal lawyers. Having clarity of court proceedings as a unifying thread, the volume focuses on access to justice as a prerequisite for democracy and for a truly inclusive society.