218764 Construction Contracts and Administration

At the New Zealand Society of Construction Law National Conference on 23 July 2019, an online survey was conducted. Among the questions were: ‘Should construction contracts be re-written in plain English while preserving legal intent?’ 97% of the respondents said ‘yes’ and 3% said ‘no’.

 

An overwhelming response favoured construction contracts to be re-written in modern plain language. The idea of a ‘White Paper’ proposing that all construction contracts in the world be rewritten in modern plain language by 2030 was also mooted at the conference.

 

Among the planned contents of the proposed ‘White Paper’ is a definition of what modern plain legal language is, what might constitute a set of modern plain language guidelines, and which organisations or entities might be a source of these guidelines.

 

Write a single, ‘flowing’ article or essay covering the following:
1 What a ‘white paper’ is
2 Definitions of plain language
3 Which organisations or entities provide sources of modern plain language guidelines, and
4 An in-depth and detailed review and explanation of one modern plain language guideline from the list in (5) below, then explain the principle, extract examples from and clearly demonstrate the application of the guideline on multiple clauses from construction contracts demonstrating good and bad drafting. Each student is to use only one guideline as allocated to them.