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> Kristen Beer had some questions as <<...an Employment Agreement that
> was a legal contract boilerplate, not designed by the company for the
> company, and certainly not with the employees' ionterests as
> priority. Consequently, the CEO has asked me to lead a team reqirte
> to make the document friendlier.>>
>
> First off, "legalese" and "friendly" are mutually exclusive. They
> shouldn't be, but that's the way it usually works out.
First, allow me to state that my spouse is an attorney. We've discussed
"legalese" before. Yes, "legalese" is old fashioned language, some from the
18th and 19th centuries. However, those words and phrases have very precise
meaning because they have been legally tested, in courts, in law suits.
What about technical writing and the words and phrases we use? Some years
ago I edited an accounting manual that spoke of "the system" several times
on a page. The context of "the system" in one page indicated that one
meaning was "the users computer", another meaning later on the same page was
"the DOS operating system", and a third usage on that same page of this
phase was "the software application". "Legalese" may seem old and foggy, yet
at least the users -- the legal system -- understand the precise meanings of
those words and phrases.
In Kristen Beer's original post, she indicated that the employment agreement
was a boilerplate, not written specifically for the company where she
worked. That too could be a problem since labor law differs from state to
state. Since that employment agreement was not designed specifically for the
company where she works, taking into consideration that state's labor laws,
reworking the wording of the employment agreement would do little if the
agreement provision isn't legal within that state anyway.
Yesterday after her message appeared on the list, I wrote Kristen privately.
In that note, I noted the above two problems and suggested that any changes
to the employment agreement be made with the assistance of the company's
attorney.
Best,
Denise L. Fritch
Sr. Tech Writer
IntelliCorp, Inc.
Mountain View, CA
