I note that you didn’t bother to quote anything which might demonstrate that.
Of course it is. She’s making a statement and then adding a caveat at the end. Do you not see how ridiculous it is for someone to complain about how something is worded and then admit that the wording is hers anyway?
shrug It’s a fairly standard notary’s attestation. A lay person doesn’t need to know what it says, because they’re not the ones signing it. I certainly agree that it’s needlessly complex, but anyone which a high school education should have no trouble at all parsing it (with apologies to ultrafilter).
Yes, but if I’m not familiar with notarial certificates, how would I infer that from the text? I’m not one of the anti-legalese types, but that is some unclear writing without context.
Medical information technology is practically prehistoric. I deal with hundreds of pieces of paper every day. I still write notes on paper that go in giant paper charts. When I write an order at the hospital or the nursing home, it is on a piece of paper with a carbon that is faxed to the appropriate department. (Correction: the clerk does actually put some of those orders in the computer.)
Some individual offices have implemented electronic medical records, but there is rarely a good way for those systems to communicate with one another. If I request records from such an office the only way they can get them to me is to print them out and fax or mail them.
Why does it stay this way?
–EMRs are ridiculously expensive to purchase and a giant pain in the ass to implement. It’s true that they can help justify higher billing levels and capture more charges, but those effects are far more modest than the salesmen would like us to believe. It may also eventually reduce staff time, but unless you’re a huge office it isn’t going to let you reduce your actual staff.
–A standard software package has never emerged. Plenty of docs have spent tens of thousands of dollars on EMRs that were practically abandoned only a few years later when they didn’t catch on. (My office’s scheduling system looks like it could have run on an Apple IIe.) If there were one package that you could count on finding whenever you walked into a clinic or hospital (the way MS Office products are ubiquitous in office settings) I think everyone would eventually get on board, but right now you’re taking a chance.
–Regulations, both internal and external, are often written in such a way that paper records are practically required. The nursing home requires my signature on probably a couple hundred documents every week, and even if there were a good way to apply it electronically to most of them, a strict reading of the regulations may not allow for it.
–Frankly, most high-level decisions within hospitals and practices are made by older physicians who may still be wary of (or at least uncomfortable with) computers. And doing ANYTHING major in most hospitals requires bringing it up in two or three medical staff meetings, which may or may not happen every month.
Things have gotten way better in the decade or so that I’ve been doctoring, but compared to practically any other industry it’s laughable.
Well, with all due respect, unless you’re a notary, a lawyer, or a judge, you don’t really need to understand it. If you are the party receiving the documents, the notary’s seal/stamp on the document should indicate what you need to know–that is, that the document has been notarized. You wouldn’t need to read the notarial certificate or attestation. It’s nice to have, but for your purposes, not essential. The attestation would come into play if there was a question about its truthfulness; at which point, lawyers would pore over the document, and judges would make a decision. You might think of such a document as being “internal” to the legal profession, really only useful to legal professionals. (In the rare cases where my lay client does not require but absolutely insists upon having a notarial certificate in addition to my seal/stamp on the document, I draft up one that is easy to read.)
I will agree that some legal documentation designed for laypeople needs work. Some software EULAs are dense legalese, but this seems to be improving. Similarly, standard-form contracts (e.g. car rental contracts) are improving slowly. as are insurance policies–“we,” “us,” “our,” “you” and “your” are replacing the clumsy and confusing “party of the first part”-type of language. But there is still a ways to go.
However, I do see a lot of clear legal writing in certain documents that laypeople need to understand. For example, affidavits to be used as evidence in court must be understandable to the non-legal people who are swearing them; and so, tend to be written in plain English: “I rented an apartment to Bill Jones. Mr. Jones was to take possession on January 1, 2011. Mr. Jones did not appear on that date, or on any subsequent date. I have not heard from Mr. Jones since then.” I’ve actually seen judges in court ask, when presented with an impenetrable affidavit, if the person signing really knew what it meant, or whether the lawyer even took the time to explain it to him or her. I’d suggest that the legal profession recognizes the value of clear and plain language, but is taking some time to get there.
Preach it. We upgraded to Meditech 6.0 almost a year ago, and not only are they constantly working bugs out of it, but just in the pharmacy department, we still use the old system for about half a dozen tasks that I have to do regularly, and an untold number more that everyone else uses. Basically, the new version is used in our department to access the EMR’s and dispense/credit doses. :smack:
No she is not, as you will see for yourself if you ever look up the definition
and can understand it.
Look up caviat too, please- a caveat is not a disclaimer.
Stop right there.
Suppose I say: “Can you not see that is ridiculous for anyone to complain”…
My wording is mine, and yours is yours, but they are close enough
to be considered identical in style and meaning.
Similarly, the SEC Chair was making use of paraphrase (that is the
word you have been looking for!) to get her point across. Why has
she been employing paraphrase? My guess is that if she quoted any
company’s documents exactly she might be accused of bias toward
someone over whom she had oversight responsibility; then the goddam
lawyers would have flooded her with yet more legalese, endless reams
of legalese, threatening dire legal action or even taking it.
The fact that such legalese is remains standard, decades after inception
of a reform movement, is exacly what I am complaining about. If the lawyers
had and real desire to reform results would be especially visible in documents
such as this which must be executed daily by the thousands.
A lay person should be able to understand any short legal document
in one try. It took me at least two, and it took the professional writer
who composed the article four, he said, and he is an expert on style
and usage.
Then why don’t you go yap at Mr. prvanik for taking so long to fix it?
After working on a massive project billing reconciliation for the last 4 days, I have decided that our brand new, fancy upgrade accounting system is antiquated. I want to be able to Select 2 lines, hit some button and say “Move to here”. Basically like drag and drop in your email. Instead I have to reverse a sales invoice, reverse the purchase invoice and then re-process it all on the correct project line. HOLY PAIN IN THE REAR for something so fundamentally simple
[nitpick] Actually, a spreadsheet can be a database. I believe what you mean is that Excel is not a proper database management system. [/nitpick]
I while back I used Western Union to wire some money to the son of a former Nigerian strongman. I handed the clerk my debit card.
“Cash only. The ATM’s over there.”
Eventually the clerk notified the other party that payment was in hand. Via the internet. The only way the 2011 process differed from the 1875 process is the use of the internet instead of sending a telegram.
Wow, this thread turned into a legal system debate. Honestly, I did not see that coming.
I’ll add a process that is antiquated:
School calendars. Here is the system of most of the United States:
You start school in a new grade around Sept 1.(give or take).
You are in that grade until approx. June 15(again, give or take).
You go on summer vacation for 2 1/2 months. When you return, you go to a new grade with new teachers.
This is wrong and many teachers know it. It should go more like this:
You start a new grade in January, after Christmas break.
You attend that grade until June 15 or so.
You take your vacation for summer like normal.
On approximately Sept. 1, you go back, but you go back to the same grade and teachers as before. They are familiar with, what you were learning, and what you need to know to get ready for the change-over coming in January.
It would make way more sense to only have the short two week break between grades and it would allow teachers to more adequately prepare kids for the new grade in the month of December.
They’d have to start it with a new 1st grade group of kids. I wish they would.
A lesser man point out the inherent irony of trying to correct someone’s use of a legal term, while simultaneously bemoaning the use of legal terms. But I won’t.
A lesser man might also point out the irony of correcting the use of words you can’t spell. But I won’t.
Sure. However, since she didn’t give the original wording, neither you nor I have a clue whether her version is identical in style or meaning.
What reform movement?
Are we talking about the notary’s certificate again? The people who execute them do understand them. That bit is printed at the bottom, and is executed by the person who witnesses you signing the actual substantive part of the document. The part where you sign says something like, “My name is John, and I am of sound mind and over the age of 18, and have personal knowledge of X. I hereby swear that on Monday, June 5, 2010, I saw Jim snatch a purse from a little old lady”.
I and pravnik have already explained why there’s no need for reform. Legalese is technical writing. Suppose you go to the doctor, and he writes ascariasis in your chart. Do you flip out and demand he speak plain English? If not, why not? Shouldn’t your chart be intelligible to a lay person? Why can’t that elitist bastard just write “roundworm”?
Well, there’s lesser, and there’s lesser. I understand it perfectly (and did the first time I saw a notary’s attestation) and I am not an expert on style or usage. None of the words in the quoted passage have a different meaning in this context than in conversational English. None are archaic.
It’s hardly easy reading, but it’s not difficult to understand. In any case, the lay person does not need to understand it.
(a) “Caveat” is as much a general-use term as a legal one.
Same for “disclaimer”.
(b) You behave exactly as you say a lesser man would behave,
so your disclaimer is fraudulent.
(a) Correct 2nd use spelling indicates 1st use error was not
lack of knowledge, it was carelessness.
(b) You behave exactly as you say a lesser man would behave,
so your disclaimer is fraudulent.
I accept her testimony, and I expect you realize that there is
no reason to think she is exaggerating or making anything up.
It is no mystery that such a movement exists, believe me.
In fact it has existed all our lives and then some. Here is an
article dated 1995 which references a 1981 study citing
movement as in being since the beginning of the 20th century:
The notary form is not in technical language, it is really only in
repetitious and reversed-order syntax favored for absolutely no
good reason by the legal profession.
Let’s take another look at the fucking thing:
“On the ____ day of _____ in the year _____ before me, the undersigned, personally appeared ____________, personally known to me or proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the individual(s) whose name(s) is (are) subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/they executed the same in his/her/their capacity(ies), and that by his/her/their signature(s) on the instrument, the individual(s), or the person upon behalf of which the individual(s) acted, executed the instrument.”
Can you, Mr. pravnic and the other legal eagles tell my why the following
text could not be used to convey the exactly same message?:
“Today (date)_______ (name of signer(s))_________ appeared before me with satisfactory evidence of personal identity, and signed this document in my presence.”
On 2nd thought you stay out of it and let’s hear a real lawyer tell me
what is wrong with my version, technically or otherwise. I do hope no
one will try to pull anything finicky such as that personal acquaintance
should not be understood as form of satisfactory evidence.
In general, anything published by any public official should be easily
understandable by an educated citizen. Truly inscrutable technical language
may be unavoidable in some contexts, but rarely if ever in legal documents.
And sure as hell not in an act as common as notarization.
Medical records are truly scientific and private. Scientific, private
documents are the opposite of non-scientific public documents,
aren’t they? They are, and subsequently there may be different
criteria for how they should be written. However, even scientific
documents should avoid exclusive use of technical language wherever
possible if laymen may need to read and understand them. Therefore
I would certainly prefer that a Doctor use “roundworm” rather
than “ascariasis” or in addition to it.
To the best of my knowledge, Pravnik is a real lawyer. And so am I, so I’ll take a shot.
I find nothing wrong with your wording; and in fact, it is very close to what I use when I draft a notarial certificate:
“On June 30, 2011, John Smith appeared before me, identified himself sufficiently, and signed the attached document in my presence.”
Unfortunately, some of the notarial certificates I have to fill out are not mine to draft. They come from banks, insurance companies, and other enterprises that require documents to be sworn or notarized; and they are just as dense as your original example. Given my druthers, I’d like to see them change; but as I do not work for those entities, I can do little about their certificate wordings. But as a lawyer, I do understand them; and as has been mentioned before, there is little to no reason why the layperson has to.
Good for you, honestly. But it would be better if you and the pravniks
of the world made more of an effort than you have so far made to eradicate
the nonsense.
And the act of notarization, as common as it is, is a minute fraction of the legal
document universe, correct?
As mentioned, the notary form is not really a technical language issue,
nor is much of the rest of the legalese scandal.
It is a style issue, where legal culture prefers such construction as
“as has been mentioned before” to the no less informative but much
more parsimonious “as mentioned”.
Where, may I ask, is the justification for the extra 12 keystrokes
contained in the words “has been…before”? There is none.
Contracts have not been mentioned, how about them? Should a layperson
be able to understand that contract which has glided from your hand to the
area of the desktop over which his pen hovers?
And are contracts the only legal documents which a layperson might conceivably
have some need to understand?
For some reason, a few years ago the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office decided to get really picky about the wording of notarized documents that they’ll accept to issue an apostille. While they used to accept wording that was along the lines of what Spoons just said, now they reject them for not using the precise form. For example, a notary witnessing a signature must use the following language, with very little deviation allowed:
I don’t really know why this is. Actually, I’m just the bike messenger taking other people’s stuff there, so I just find out when they tell me it can’t be processed and send me back with an explanation.
Generally, I’ve found that legal requirements can be stupid and arbitrary in many ways, but it doesn’t really seem like they’re trying to make it more difficult for the layperson. Lawyers don’t seem to have any special ability to remember that for some reason, Middlesex Superior Court requires that the form used to open a new case is on yellow paper (which they won’t provide more than, I think, six of. After that, you have to either photocopy it onto your own yellow paper, or make another trip to get the next six blank forms). It doesn’t seem like some sort of deliberate plot to keep non-lawyers out, though. Just a lot of things that have “always been done that way” and various improvements tacked on to the existing infrastructure haphazardly because there’s never enough resources to overhaul things.
Speaking of antiquated processes, is anyone else picturing colonial hitting the carriage return like on a manual typewriter whenever he gets to the right edge of the the text box?
Look, if you’re going to keep complaining about other people’s writing, fix your own. Spell their names correctly, at least.
There is one other reason why affidavits specifically include the flowery language: to impress the plebes. One of the reasons affidavits require language with gravity is to convey to the people signing them that they had better be telling the truth.
A written contract could be as simple as “Jim agrees to sell his pen to Bob for $1.” As long as it’s signed by the other party, it’s enforceable.
However, contracts are drafted because centuries of experience have shown that people who sign them occasionally change their minds- or because the parties disagree on what they meant.
What if Jim loses the pen? Are there implied warranties? When is Bob required to pay for the pen? When is Jim required to deliver it? What if Jim verbally agreed to accept 75 cents instead?
Considering the point she is trying to make, there is every reason to think she is exaggerating. I’m glad you accept her testimony, but you’re not the one you’re trying to convince.
[/nitpick]