The use of “legal design” to translate legalese is an experience that will complete ten years in 2023. The term was first used by Margaret Hagan, in the United States, in 2013, in her laboratory at Stanford University.
In 2017, with the book she released – Law by Design –, the concept was consolidated. Today, in Brazil, the practice is recommended in a resolution of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and is public policy in a state of the federation (Ceará), in addition to being increasingly adopted by companies and organizations in the third sector.
By making legal documents understandable to anyone, such as contracts, court decisions, internal policies, certificates, public notices and petitions, the practice of “legal design” reduces conflicts, speeds up negotiations, avoids non-compliance with contracts and reduces the duration of legal proceedings. , as explained by lawyer Mariana Moreno, president of the Legal Design and Visual Law Commission of the Brazilian Bar Association in Paraíba (OAB/PB).
In 2020, she and fellow lawyer Erik Nybo founded Bits, a startup providing “legal design” services. The company operates on three fronts: training courses, a “legal design” studio (in which it transforms documents requested by clients) and, more recently, it has developed “legal design” software, the only one in the market aimed at the legal area.
“All sectors of the market and society are increasingly concerned about offering a better experience for their customers and users. And in the legal area it could not be different”, points out Mariana. That’s why creating legal documents that are easy to understand is a trend that is here to stay. It is a market that still has a lot to grow.
The insertion of design in the legal universe, by Margaret Hagan, “creates a new generation of accessible and engaging services in the field”, says Mariana Moreno.
“[A autora] proposes to reanalyze the legal world as a whole, using design to find solutions that make more sense for society and to solidify an approach centered on human beings and their experience when using a document, the service and the legal system”, adds the co-founder from Bits.
Mariana Moreno highlights that, in Brazil, the Judiciary not only uses, but also encourages the adoption of “legal design”.
Resolution 347, of the CNJ, of 2020, establishes in its article 32 that the practice must be used, whenever possible, so that legal documents become “clearer, more common and accessible”. “Even public bodies that are reputed to be extremely rigid and bureaucratic, as is the case with the Boards of Trade, are already accepting graphic elements and ‘legal design’ techniques in corporate acts”, exemplifies the lawyer.
In the Executive Power, the State of Ceará became, last year, the first federation unit to institute the practice in law. Through the State Policy on Simple Language and Audiovisual Law, notices and normative acts must be published in an uncomplicated version.
Legal design, visual law or visual law?
According to Mariana Moreno, in Brazil, the term “visual law” has become recurrent to refer to the practice of “legal design”. It is this expression that appears, for example, in the resolution of the CNJ.
The translation to “Visual Right” is also common (it is in the name of Ceará’s public policy). They are different forms for the same concept coined by Margaret Hagan in her 2017 book, underlines the lawyer.
“Some say”, observes Mariana Moreno, “that ‘visual law’ is the application of graphic and image resources in legal documents, while ‘legal design’ is a broader concept. However, using only visual elements and not applying simple language does not help to make the document easier to understand.
Therefore, I understand that the visual law concept does not fulfill the objective, since it focuses only on the aesthetics and not on the functionality of the document”, he evaluates.
In addition, continues the expert, the uncomplication of a document is not limited to making it “prettier” visually, through images and other graphic resources. It includes simplifying the language, which implies concern for the text as well.
“You take that document full of far-fetched terms, with huge blocks of running text, written in technical terms, and it becomes something to be read in a pleasant way and, above all, that can be understood”, stresses Mariana Moreno.