Legal advisers and legal documents use special words and phrases. Sometimes these can be hard to understand. People often seek legal advice at busy times in their lives. This could be buying a home, making a will or settling a dispute. Hard to understand words can make this time even more stressful.
Our law dictionary aims to explain legal language in a way that’s easy to understand. All our dictionary content is in Plain English. And now we’ve started to add “Easy Read” definitions to some entries. This makes them even easier to understand.
Frontline legal advisers might find Easy Read content useful. It could help when they’re talking to people who find it hard to understand legal terms.
What is Easy Read?
The Easy Read format aims to help people with learning disabilities. But Easy Read can help everyone understand information more easily. It can be used by a carer to talk through a document.
Easy Read is helpful for all readers as it gives only important information. Readers who are not fluent in English find this very helpful.
Images are often used to explain a sentence. The text is in a large font size and on the right-hand side of the page. If a difficult word must be used, there is an explanation.
Some Easy Read definitions come with a video. This helps to makes sure they are accessible to all.
An example
An Easy Read definition for a legal term is clear and easy to understand. It won’t give any information that is not needed. For example:
Witness (noun). Someone who can tell the court what happened.
This definition explains what a witness is. It doesn’t give any extra information. The page also has a video. Hearing the definition read out load can help. This makes sure the page is accessible.
Other sources of help
Find out more about Easy Read on the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities site.