One of their assignments is to revise a corporate document so it is more readable. The students specifically ask their supervisors for a document the department would like redrafted. They take on this task after a half-day “Readability Workshop” (I don’t call it plain English anymore) and the required purchase of Garner’s “Legal Writing in Plain English.” Some of the students meet with me for hours to review their work product. Most of the students do a professional job on this assignment.

One might think this resource—law students with writing-for-readability training—could be a way for legal departments to redraft documents cost-effectively.

That probably won’t happen, though, as the student work is rejected in favor of the original document at least 90% of the time. Those originals, apparently in hindsight, “ain’t broke.”