summary and public presentation of the original article http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.2819/abstract

1. Do People Comprehend Legal Language in Wills?
There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing.
One is its style. The other is its content. […]
(Rodell, 1962)
Summary:
Scope: ability of laypeople to understand a legal document that most have read and
signed: a last will and testament.
Research step:
• Selection concepts frequently included in wills
• They were examined if understanding can be enhanced by psycholinguistic
revisions, and assessed comprehension as a function of age
• Participants ages 32 to 89 years read will-related concepts in 3 different version
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

2. Motivation
Lack of attention to how well people understand the language
and concepts in wills is concerning for several reasons.
– 2/3 of adults aged 70 years or older reported having a will (Goetting &
Martin, 2001),
– 85% of those 80 years and older have a will (AARP, 2000).
– most individuals who have executed legally valid wills are assisted
attorneys
– attorneys use ‘boilerplate’ templates, lengthy and full of legal jargon
(‘legalese’), including archaic terms and specialized concepts unfamiliar to
most laypeople
– increasing numbers of people rely on computer-generated wills or do-
it-yourself handbooks
Legal documents use typically language and ideas unfamiliar and
inaccessible to laypeople.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

3. Motivation
People are living longer
– As people are living longer, the
incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and
other dementias is increasing
– difficult to distinguish the early signs of
dementia from normal age-related
changes in cognitive and affective
functioning.
– As dementia worsens, concerns arise
about undue influence in the drafting
and revoking of wills (Scalise, 2008).
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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4. Motivation
In general many people sign legal documents that they have
not fully read or understood (Howe & Wogalter, 1994).
• One of the most esteemed judges in the USA admitted to signing his
home equity loan without reading the accompanying documentation
(Lat, 2010)
• This suggests a large numbers of people have executed a will
that contained language they did not fully understand
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

5. Complexity of legal document
There are various reasons why legal documents have historically
been so impenetrable.
• English became the official language of legal documents in 1731.
• The tradition of lengthy.
• Finally, attorneys in the USA have learned to leave nothing unclear
and, as a result, address every conceivable interpretation of their
words with lengthy citations, ample cross-referencing, and
voluminous detail.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

6. Materials
Will excerpts
• From WillMaker – Estate Planning Essentials (2008)
• 8 excerpts that are commonly used in last wills and
testaments:
– general provisions (1 - i.e. ‘by represen-tation’),
– tax provisions(2 - i.e. ‘death taxes’)
– trusteeship(3 - i.e. ‘replacement oftrustee’)
– powers of fiduciaries(4 - i.e. ‘grant’)
– administrative provisions (i.e. 5 - ‘ancillary fidu-ciary’ and 6 -
‘protection against perpetuities’)
– residuary estate (i.e. 7 - ‘remote continent disposition’)
– and specific and general gifts (i.e. 8 - ‘contingent gift’, but
this are deleted)
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

7. Versions of Excerpts
• Original from book (WillMaker) - 8 excerpts
• Increased readability (1 version) – eachexcerpts
• Readability with Terms Explained (1 version) – eachexcperpts
• Questionnaries with new situation
An advocate specialized in wills reviewed our:
– original excerpts;
– successive revisions;
– application of each excerpt to a novel factual situation
In his opinion, the excerpts accurately reflected language
he is accustomed to seeing in practice with one exception
‘contingent gift’.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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8. Increased Readability versions
Increased Readability
All trusts created by this instrument will terminate
no later than 21 years after the death of my spouse
or my last living descendant, whichever occurs later.
The property will then be vested in and distributed
to the beneficiaries named by the last surviving
descendent in accordance with the specifications of
that descendant’s will.
Increased Readability with explained
terms
The trusts created by my will must expire no later
than 21 years after the death of my spouse or my
last living descendant, whichever occurs later. The
property will then be provided for and distributed to
the heirs named by the last surviving descendent in
accordance with the specifications of that
descendant’s will.
• Lexicon NOT syntax.
• Deleted redundant words and phrases
• Replaced with active verbs
• Lower frequency nominalizations words with
higher frequency synonyms
• Dividing lengthy sentences into shorter
sentences and, replacing passive voice with
active voice.
Scope: reduce information load and the
demands on working memory and to
improve the readability of the excerpts as
measured by traditional readability tests.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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9. Comparsion of versions*
Original
• Words 140
• Characters 802
• Sentences 2
• Frequency Words:
– 5 shall - 4 income - 3
persons - 3 any - 3
trust - 3 entitled - 3
treated - 2 group - 2
distributed - 2
receiveafter – 1
death – 1 spouse
With Terms Explained
• Words 54
• Characters 335
• Sentences 2
• Frequency Words:
– 2 later – 2 last – 1
descendant – 1
instrument – 1
terminate – 1 all – 1
years – 1
Increased Readability
• Words 54
• Characters 319
• Sentences 2
• Frequency Words:
• 2 later - 2 last - 1
whichever - 1 expire - 1
trusts - 1 years - 1
after - 1 death - 1
spouse - 1 must
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara
* Note: source not official papers but mine example

10. The complexity of the versions
Evaluated the complexity of the excerpts by
– Computing the mean number of words per excerpt and per sentenze
– Computing the percentage of sentences in passive voice
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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11. Estimated complexity
• Flesch Reading Ease (Flesch, 1948)
• Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level
formula (Flesch, 1950)
• As expected, scores for reading
ease increased with successive
revisions, and grade level
equivalencies dropped.
https://readability-score.com/text/
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

12. 12
DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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13. Questionnaires and Tester
• Excerpts arranged in one per page
– A one-paragraph vignette followed each excerpt
– It applied that particular concept to a novel fact pattern and required
participants to determine whether the concept had been applied correctly
(a Yes/No question; for five items, the correct answer was ‘No’, and for the other
three items, the correct answer was ‘Yes’).
– Asking participants to explain their application of the concept to this novel
fact pattern.
– Example:
Your granddaughter was 7 years old when you died. She is your last living
descendent. She executes a will, leaving the trust she inherited from you
to her boyfriend. She dies at age 33. The boyfriend now claims to be
entitled to this trust.
Is he? Yes or No? Explain why or why not
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

14. Procedure
• Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three document
complexity conditions:
– 50 received the Original version
– 50 received the Increased Readability version
– and 55 received the Increased Readability with Terms Explained version.
• Approximately has 40 to 50 minutes to compile a questionnarie, depending
on the level of language complexity
• Evaluation by Indipendent Raters :
– Indipendent raters scored the explanations as correct, incorrect, or missing.
– Raters were instructed not to make inferences about what the writer might
have intended.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

15. Expected result
Two main objectives:
(i) determining if increasing the readability of excerpts
enhances comprehension of key concepts expressed in
those excerpts
(ii) determine differences in text comprehension as a
function of age.
Comprehension was measured by accuracy of answers
to the seven yes/no concept application questions.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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16. Evaluation of results
Age effect
Addressed by dividing the participants into three age groups
representing
• younger (n = 38; 32 to 49 years; M = 42.50; SD = 4.48)
• middle-aged (n = 54; 50 to 64 years; M = 56.20; SD = 4.50)
• older (n = 63; 65 to 89 years; M = 73.92; SD = 6.54)
Correct Answers
• The seven concept application questions were analyzed for total percent
of correct, incorrect, and missing answers.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

17. Correct Answers
Original <<< Increased Read-ability < * with Terms Explained
• the Original version resulted in significantly fewer correct
applications as compared with versions with Increased Read-ability
and Increased Readability with Terms Explained
• The Increased Readability version resulted in fewer correct applications
than did Increased Readability with TermsExplained.
• No main effect of age found
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

18. Missing Answers
• The Original version resulted in significantly more missing answers
than did the Increased Readability with Terms Explained version.
Incorrect Answers
• The Original version resulted in significantly more incorrect
applications as compared with the Increased Readability with Terms
Explained version.
There were no effect of age and no interaction between age and
version.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

19. Explanations
Correct
Original version resulted in significantly fewer correct explanations
as compared with the Increased Readability with Terms Explained
version
There were no significant age effects, nor an interaction found.
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

20. Results
These incorrect explanations tended to fit into one of three categories.
• (i) a clear lack of conceptual understanding (the most frequent error);
• (ii) an incorrect inference or inferences;
• (iii) a commonsensical or folk theory as to what seemed fair to the participant, with little
reference to the wording of the will excerp
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

21. Education and answers
Education was not a significant
factor for correct, incorrect, or
missing answers on the
application questions.
But there was an
interaction between
• Education level and will version
– On the percent of correct
explanations
– On Increased Readability and Terms
Explained
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara
Note: education as a proxy for intelligence.

22. Result
This study showed that people have significant
difficulty understanding the concepts described in
traditional and boilerplate wills.
There are no Age effect
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DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara

23. Results of study
• comprehension can be enhanced by carefully
revising the syntax and by providing explanations
of complex terms
–be necessary but not sufficient.
• Not find age effects; older adults were nonger;
– Suspect: because of the nature of the tasks we created
and the comprehension measures we used
• Compensation of consepts: older people has minor
performance of comprehension but has more familiare
with Will consept
DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara
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24. Age invariant situation model
• A central claim of this review is that processing at the situation model
level is relatively age invariant, provided that there are no difficulties
at other levels of cognition that may provide input to the
construction of the situation models (Radvansky & Dijkstra, 2007)
• Younger and older adults display similar temporal updating when
there is a substantial time shift in the narrative (Radvansky, Cope-
land, et al., 2003) and spatial updating that involves changes in the
availability of an object relative to the protagonist (Morrow et al., 1997;
Radvansky, Copeland, et al., 2003; Stine-Morrow et al., 2002).
• Finally, goal information that has become irrelevant for the situation
model is processed in much the same way by younger and older
adults (Radvansky & Dijkstra, 2007)
DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
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25. Thanks to all
DoPeopleComprehendLegalLanguageinWills?---
M.Domenico,C.Barbara
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Barbara Campanale Domenico Monaco