Connecting and Framing Phrases in Legal English

Legal and professional writing is often judged by its terminology: whether the legal terms are accurate, the technical vocabulary appropriate and the register sufficiently formal. These questions matter, but they do not settle whether a document is clear and understandable. A text can use every term correctly and still be difficult to follow if the reader cannot see how one statement relates to the next.

Much of that work is done by short words and phrases such as however, therefore, subject to, subsequently and in particular. They are often grouped together as “transition words”, but they do different jobs. Some mark the logical relationship between two statements, some set the conditions or limits of a single statement, and others place events or steps in order. Phrases of the first and third kinds connect statements or events; those of the second kind frame what is being said.

Connecting phrases show the relationship between two statements: addition, contrast, concession, consequence or example. Framing phrases define a statement’s scope, condition, exception or priority, or the writer’s degree of certainty.

Consider a short summary of the kind that might open an email to a client:

The goods arrived on 3 May. Two pallets were damaged. The buyer notified the supplier on 5 May and asked it to collect the damaged pallets. The supplier did not reply or arrange collection. The buyer arranged and paid for storage while awaiting collection.

Here, the reader has to work out what connects the sentences.

Compare:

The goods arrived on 3 May. However, two pallets were damaged. Two days later, the buyer notified the supplier and asked it to collect them. The supplier did not reply or arrange collection. The buyer therefore arranged and paid for storage while awaiting collection.

The facts are unchanged, but the account now has a shape. However marks the problem, two days later shows how quickly the buyer reacted, and therefore presents the storage as a result of the supplier’s failure to reply or collect. That reading is accurate only because collection had been requested; otherwise, a neutral then would have been correct.

Sequence is not consequence

Sequence markers such as first, then and subsequently say when something happened, not why. Therefore and accordingly assert that one matter follows from another:

The supplier failed to deliver by 1 March. Subsequently, the buyer terminated the contract.

The supplier failed to deliver by 1 March. Accordingly, the buyer terminated the contract.

One version records sequence; the other presents the termination as a response to the non-delivery. If the file shows only the dates, not the buyer’s reasons, subsequently is the accurate choice. A connector makes a claim about the relationship between facts or statements, and that claim must be supported by the facts.

Conditions, limitations and certainty

Compare four formulations:

The tenant may terminate the lease.

Subject to the notice requirements in clause 12, the tenant may terminate the lease.

The tenant may terminate the lease provided that three months’ written notice is given.

The tenant may terminate the lease for the landlord’s breach unless the breach is remedied within 14 days.

Only the first describes an unqualified right. In the second, the right depends on compliance with another provision; in the third, on a condition being met; in the fourth, it does not arise if the breach is remedied in time.

Provided that needs particular care: it can introduce a condition, an exception or an additional obligation. To the extent that confines a statement to part of a situation. Notwithstanding, without prejudice to and save that regulate how provisions relate to one another, by giving priority, preserving another provision or carving out an exception.

Words such as arguably and it appears that qualify something else again: the writer’s confidence in a statement rather than its scope.

Simple connectors such as and, but, also and because are often clearer than formal alternatives. The purpose is not to make writing sound more legal, but to make the reasoning clear.

In a document that a client may act on, or that a court may construe, the choice of connector is part of what the document says.