Doctoral Dissertation Research: Preventive Law Through Plain Language: Testing a Pyscholegal Audience Based Evaluation of Contract Perception and Comprehension

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Penrod 9618365 Standardized form contracts are used in the majority of modern contractual transactions and have become an indispensable part of contemporary commerce. Many times the meaning of these contracts is unclear to the public because they are written in arcane language that is difficult for lawyers and non-lawyers to decipher. This research uses a two-stage empirical process to study plain language provisions .Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The first stage explores contract schema of both lawyers and laypersons elicited via focus group methods. Using the schema elicited in the first stage, questions will be developed to measure the effects of provisions of plain language statutes on comprehension, perceptions of enforceability and fairness, and attributions toward the drafting parties. A true experiment will test these effects with a sample of 232 adults. This research will inform schema theory and extend the existing research on clarity of judicial instruction to the domain of contracts. %%% Standardized form contracts are used in the majority of modern contractual transactions and have become an indispensable part of contemporary commerce. Many times the meaning of these contracts is unclear to the public because they are written in arcane language that is difficult for lawyers and non-lawyers to decipher. This research uses a two-stage empirical process to study plain language provisions .Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The first stage explores contract schema of both lawyers and laypersons elicited via focus group methods. Using the schema elicited in the first stage, questions will be developed to measure the effects of provisions of plain language statutes on comprehension, perceptions of enforceability and fairness, and attributions toward the drafting parties. A true experiment will test these effects with a sample of 232 adults. This research will inform schema theory and extend the existing research on clarity of judi cial instruction to the domain of contracts. ***