Gertrude Stein's famous line is a gentle reminder that words do not multiply reality just by being repeated. Legal language has found a way around that rule. In the courtroom, a rose is called a "substance endowed with red pigmentation and thorn-bearing lateral branches" — and of course the floral object. You always get it three times, just in case the bench missed it the first two.
This small indulgence has its reasons. Legal language aims at precision. Precision means that every term carries a defined meaning which the reader — judge, opposing counsel, expert — can understand without ambiguity. If we called the rose simply "a rose" we would leave room for interpretation; what we want instead is a term the opposing side cannot talk their way around.
The trouble is: the client reads along too. And at some point the client looks up and asks why, for twelve pages, the story has been about "the aforementioned party" instead of just "Ms Meier". The answer — "because in the appeal the opposing counsel could otherwise argue that Ms Meier was in fact not the aforementioned party but someone else with the same surname" — is perfectly accurate, and perfectly unhelpful for most people in most situations.
I'm increasingly convinced that there is a duty of language on our side. A brief that only the initiated understand has missed at least half of its purpose. Courts read these briefs, yes, but the person who actually lives through the case is the client — and the client should be able to follow the argument without a dictionary in their lap. The Federal Court of Justice once put it nicely: "Clarity of language is the clarity of the legal position expressed in it." That is a beautiful sentence from a bench that otherwise writes in a style no one would want to read for pleasure.
There is a second reason to like plain words. Every overblown construct narrows our own thinking. If I write "the contractual party, in person of the defendant, has neglected the duty, arising out of the contractual relationship, to deliver the item in a timely manner", I am building a little fortress of vocabulary around a simple fact: Ms Meier did not deliver on time. Ms Meier, Mr Müller, the washing machine, the 15th of April. Names and dates. Most cases lose nothing in precision if one simply says what actually happened.
In a courtroom, the ability to be precise without being precious is — in my experience — a competitive advantage. Judges are bored by inflated prose. Judges appreciate a brief in which the first paragraph already conveys what you want, why you think you are right, and what relief you are seeking. The second paragraph can then be the technical apparatus. That order, not the opposite, tends to win.
Stein, by the way, kept her short formula because she did not want to multiply the rose into a metaphor. She wanted you to see the rose itself. In legal work that is the same idea: let the rose be the rose. A client whose lawyer writes that way does not stop being safe — they simply also stop being lost.