The proposal that legal language with its elaborate circumlocutions and Latin tags should be abolished in favour of plain English received a knockback this week at a Times-sponsored debate, hosted by Taylor Wessing, on the motion The Language of English law is in Need of Fundamental Reform.

The pre-debate vote conducted by Lord Justice Jacob, the debate chairman, showed a probable walkover by the advocates of reform, Stephen Gerlis, the radical district judge, and Anne Atkins, the broadcaster. But their arguments were progressively derailed by Richard Gordon, QC, and Shaun Ley, the Radio 4 broadcaster. The pair unsettled the audience about the wisdom of “throwing the baby out with the bath water” in a naive rush to a simplistic solution. What the reformers portrayed as the bright sun of clarity could prove to be a fog of imprecision, they said.

The debate, organised by the English Project to mark the anniversary of the Statute of Pleading in 1362 — which decried the use of French in English legal cases — was timely against the background of the opening-up of the Supreme Court, in Parliamen Square, to the public.

For the reformers it was an open and shut case. As Gerlis put it, the traditional conventions — from the use of expressions such as “My learned friend” to Latin expressions such as lis mota and praecipe — were out of place when communication, through texting, was moving towards shorter words and expressions. Traditional legal language did not serve the public who were entitled to understand the rules and regulations that governed their lives, he said.

This was underlined by Clive Ludlow, a prison officer at Belmarsh, who spoke from the floor on behalf of Safe Ground, the education charity. He said that a survey of prisoners indicated that many were baffled by the legal arguments that determined their futures.

Atkins recounted her own recent and confusing experience with a lawyer. “It’s very important that I, as a client, understand what you, as my legal adviser, are saying.”

In response Gordon and Ley conceded that many complicated forms of expressions could be dropped. But the problem, they said, was not with English legal language but with the lawyers who used it — and who lapsed too readily into well-worn phrases.

Gordon said this was not the fault of the language. Its strength and vigour lay in a history of solid Anglo-Saxon words, with the occasional Latin and French term to provide consistency and concision. As Jonathan Croucher, of Taylor Wessing, pointed out: “The law is often not straightforward.” It was inevitable that some complexity would creep in.

As the debate progressed, the case for precision cut the ground from beneath the feet of the radicals. The “rushed” Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 highlighted the dangers that arose when seemingly clear words such as “pitbull terrier” were used. The public might think that they knew what the words meant, but that would not be enough in a court where exactitude and certainty were required, said Ley. Correctly used legal language would guard against these ambiguities.

Speaking from the floor, Professor Susan Nash, the Dean of the City Law School, City University, raised the issue of whether universities should share the blame for obscure legal communication.

She said that the need for “appropriate language suited to the listener” was heavily emphasised at law schools, such as her own, but the complexity of law inevitably meant that some technical language would have to be used — although only when essential.

The question hanging over the debate was whether the French today were doing any better than in the 14th century. Pascal Chadenet, of Salans, the Paris law firm, said that while French contracts were usually shorter than their English equivalents, French legal discourse was at least as confusing and often more complex. “When you read a decision of the French court you often don’t understand the question, let alone the answer,” he said.

Leon Pickering and Saad Butt, both law students, summarised the arguments, followed by Lord Justice Jacob, who, in his guidance to the audience, said: “In the courts one only saw the pathology of the law, not the physiology.” The point went home. The vote revealed that the audience had changed its mind and soundly rejected the motion.

At the end of the evening, Bill Lucas, trustee of the English Project, launched Lay the Law Down, a scheme that encourages the public to contribute their ideas for new laws written clearly, concisely and precisely. Go to englishproject.org to take part.

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