The Rules of Evidence- no longer as miserably confusing as they used to be

The Federal Rules of Evidence have been rewritten for clarity. This almost infuriates me – if I had to suffer through the incomprehensible double (or triple) negatives and the exceptions to the exception, why shouldn’t the current crop of law students? The Rules of Evidence were the legal equivalent of a Russian novel – far too long, and everyone is named Misha.

No longer. The Rules of Evidence have been completely “restyled” in plain English for clarity. The new rules are not currently in effect, but can be read here (4MB PDF). The document at that link lists the the text of the current rule side-by-side with the amended rule, making the changes, well, plain. Take a look at Rule 501, the privilege rule:

It’s easy to see which is the rewritten rule. Even though the text could not be any different, the substance of the rule remains the same. Rule 807 – the residual hearsay exception – undergoes a similar transformation:

What is striking about these amendments is that clarity is achieved as much by formatting as by changes in language. A single run-on block of text is difficult for most people to read. Break up the text with bullet points, em-dashes, and indentations. Your writing will improve greatly.

I still think that law students should suffer. At least they’ll still have to read Palsgraf.