Brazilian Judge Demands Plain Legal Writing

For years, American lawyers have been pushed to abandon legalese in favor of plain English. The basic idea is simple: good legal writing should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. A 40-page brief that could have made the same argument in ten pages is rarely viewed as an accomplishment.

Over time, the plain English movement has reached law schools, law firms, courts, and government agencies. For example, the SEC promoted plain English disclosure documents in the 1990s, and federal agencies have been subject to the Plain Writing Act since 2010.

Brazil, however, has traditionally taken a different approach. Brazilian legal writing tends to be much more formal. Court petitions are often lengthy and filled with elaborate and sometimes archaic language, extensive quotations, doctrinal references, and what an American lawyer would consider “fluff.” In a judicial system already dealing with an enormous volume of cases, those unnecessary pages consume time and resources.

At least one Brazilian federal judge in Belo Horizonte has apparently had enough. Judge Fabiano Verli recently asked lawyers appearing before him to use simple Portuguese, eliminate unnecessary flourishes, and preferably limit petitions to six pages. He also criticized filings that try to address everything but ultimately focus on nothing. His reasoning was practical: overly broad and unfocused filings delay cases.

Perhaps it’s time for Brazilian legal writing to move in the same direction as the US, with less formality and legalese, and more focus on telling the court what it actually needs to know to make a decision.