Sexual Barrier Protection Devices.

The Internet is a great repository for all kinds of stuff that can be used as base materials for teaching. I teach the odd legal drafting, plain English legal writing, and English for Lawyers courses, and have found some more material for this subject.

A bill to be entitled

An act relating to state inmates; authorizing a nonprofit or public health care organization to distribute sexual barrier protection devices to inmates in the state correctional system; requiring the Department of Corrections to develop a plan to properly dispose of used sexual barrier protection devices; providing an effective date.

I have the Silent Majority to thank for the link.

This is a piece of legislation that is on the cards for Florida. I am actually not so much against the legislation and do not have any moral or ethical issues with the provision of sexual barrier protection devices to inmates of correctional facilities. There are good reasons for the provision of these devices, such as seeking to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in jails, including HIV, among others.

I was intrigued by what a sexual barrier protection device is. Unfortunately, the bill does not specify in the limited extract I have as to what might be included. It does mention condoms, but I get the distinct feeling that there is more to this than just condoms. Nevertheless, it is still a good lesson in legal drafting.

When one wants legal certainty then it pays to be specific or in this case explicit. It is worth noting that a simple Google search turns up a lot of hits for the term but not a lot of definitive answers.

Punctuation

I teach a couple of legal drafting classes in local universities and law firms. I do not use the following as an example. Nevertheless, it illustrates a very important point.

Punctuation makes all the difference in terms of intent and meaning.

An English professor wrote the words:

"A woman without her man is nothing"

on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote:

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females in the class wrote:

"A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Interesting.

Parody -- Lawyers

Although a parody, this is a good reason why lawyers need to consider seriously adopting a plainer drafting and writing style.

The part of the first part hereinafter known as Jack, and the part of the second part hereinafter known as Jill, ascended or caused to be ascended an elevation of undetermined height and degree of slope, hereinafter referred to as "hill."

Parody from 20th Century