Simplicity

In the film “Philadelphia”, a client appears at the lawyer’s office and explains his problem for a long time. The viewer can’t understand what’s going on. When the client finishes, the lawyer (Denzel Washington) says, “Okay, and now please tell me all this again in such a way that MY 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER UNDERSTANDS IT.” When my daughters were 6-9, 9-12 and 12-15 years old, I checked to see if I could easily explain things: Rylands v Fletcher (1868), Lizardi (1861) and others. If the procedural letter does not explain the problems in such a way that the 13-year-old can understand them, it means that the description is not accessible enough so that the court can easily assimilate our point of view on the case.

Then our chances of winning the case are reduced because we can’t present something in a clear and simple way. The mastery of making a clear summary of books was achieved by the publishing house “get Abstract”. After reading the summary of the book, the reader has no false impression that he already knows a lot about the subject. An unsurpassed example of a clear depiction of complex issues is the introduction to bankruptcy law written by Maurice Allerhand. I read this introduction ONLY ONCE 25 years ago, but I still remember a lot today. This is not due to my memory, but to the clarity of Mr Allerhand’s thoughts.