Legal sector
A consumer notice should be presented in “plain and intelligible language”.
As per the UK Consumer Rights Act.
The legal requirement for firms.
The need for intelligibility in all consumer notices and contracts has been a fundamental part of UK law for decades.
The Consumer Rights Act requires that these important documents are “legible and written in plain and intelligible language”. If contracts are not intelligible, they are not considered transparent and are therefore unenforceable.
The Competitions and Markets Authority makes this clear in its guidance: “The primary requirement of transparency is that a term should be intelligible to consumers.”
The law covers consumer terms and contracts across all sectors. Intelligibility is required whether providing a guarantee, providing terms and conditions, leasing a property, or contracting for a service.
Lawyers face the intelligibility requirement head-on. But do they have the tools they need to objectively measure intelligibility for their clients?
Legal regulation.
The requirement for intelligibility flows down to the regulations affecting lawyers.
For example, the SRA’s Rule 18 governs how law firms communicate with their clients. All client information must be provided “in a clear and accurate manner, comprehensible to the client”.
The Law Society's good practice encourages client information to be provided in a “concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible form”.
Yet, very often, legal communications and regulated documents are complex. They are full of unusual legal language and hard-to-read clauses. This creates a big problem for consumers.
Access to justice.
One impact on consumers is that employing legal services and understanding legal information is challenging.
Access to justice is more than people’s access to courts and the availability of legal advice. It is also about making sure everyone understands their rights and making the law seem less intimidating.
This is an agenda that Amplifi holds close to its heart. It runs through our mission and ethos. It is what we help our clients to achieve.