Digital Contracts : Addressing Legalese

A kind of smart contract, but with interpretive rather than governance goals.    This was an early goal of 'hypertext' within our enterprise.  You could define terms with a link as much as you wanted within a document.   But we soon understood that many definitions varied over time, requiring maintenance, had varying definitions in context, and in some cases needed pages of definitions and explanatory examples. 

When I click 'agree' now, I often wonder about the risk involved.   Never spelled out personally for me.   Or my organization in it's context.   I like Pinker's definition: " .. legal language often appears convoluted because it cannot assume the levels of trust and mutual understanding that inform most other types of communication ... " 

Fighting Legalese with Digital, Personalized Contracts   By William Pitt in the HBR

The cost of legalese in business contracts is high. Companies must hire expensive lawyers to write the stuff. Their customers often miss important information because — really — when was the last time you read every word of one of those privacy agreements before clicking “Agree”? And if those customers lose faith in those companies because they are surprised by what they missed, they can swiftly air their grievances on social media.

The problem is widespread, affecting a broad swath of industries and functions including real estate financing, content licensing, consumer finance, residential leases, consumer warranties, and insurance.

For some decades, the most commonly touted solution has been the conversion of legalese into plain English. Unfortunately the magic wand with which to achieve this conversion has proved elusive;  companies are understandably reluctant to sacrifice legal certainty for clarity.  And there’s a reason for the trade-off.  As the linguist and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker wrote in The Language Instinct, legal language often appears convoluted because it cannot assume the levels of trust and mutual understanding that inform most other types of communication.  .... "