deslop: Plain English Legal Writing
Rewrites legalese and padded AI prose in plain English, while keeping binding legal terms of art word for word.
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Grok Bot+18 agentsdeslop: Plain English Legal Writing
Example session with this skill installed
Audit and rewrite this clause: "In the event that the Tenant shall fail to make payment of the rent when due, the Landlord may, inter alia, take a decision to terminate this Lease forthwith and/or to recover possession of the said Premises."
- Read your context and instructions
- Compiled the deslop
- Generated the document
I audited the clause against all six sections of the skill. The meaning stays the same: the Landlord keeps every remedy the original gave it, including remedies the clause does not list.
Audit Report
| Section | Violations found | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| I. Structure | One 36-word sentence. | Exceeds the 30-word ceiling and buries the two remedies at the end. |
| II. Word Choice | "In the event that," "make payment of," "take a decision to," "forthwith," "said," "inter alia." | Wordy locutions, zombie nouns, and archaic legalese. |
| III. Terms of Art | None found. Defined terms kept verbatim: Tenant, Landlord, Lease, Premises. | Defined terms carry meaning from elsewhere in the lease, so they stay as written. |
| IV. Syntax | "shall fail," "and/or." | "Shall" in a condition becomes present tense. "And/or" hides whether the Landlord can use both remedies. |
| V. Editorial | None found. | — |
| VI. Advanced | None found. | — |
Plain English Revision
If the Tenant fails to pay rent when due, the Landlord may immediately terminate this Lease, recover possession of the Premises, or both. These remedies are in addition to any others the Landlord has.
What changed and why
- "In the event that" became "if," and "make payment of" became "pay."
- "Shall fail" became "fails." In a condition, "shall" signals no duty, so the present tense is correct.
- "Take a decision to terminate" became "terminate." "May decide to terminate" would be weaker than the original.
- "And/or" became "or both," which states the inclusive meaning outright.
- "Inter alia" became a separate sentence. Deleting it outright could make termination look like the Landlord's only remedy, which would change the clause's legal effect.
- "Forthwith" became "immediately," and "the said Premises" became "the Premises."
Next steps
- Check that "when due" matches the payment terms defined elsewhere in the Lease.
- Confirm local landlord-tenant law does not require a notice or cure period before termination.
deslop-plain-english-legal-writing.pdf
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About this skill
Legal documents often hide their meaning under archaic legalese, passive voice, and needless complexity. This skill audits and rewrites legal writing, professional documentation, and general text in plain English, while keeping legal terms of art exactly as written.
What it does
- Legalese purge: replaces archaic words like "aforesaid," "heretofore," and "witnesseth" with modern equivalents.
- Syntactic restructuring: enforces active voice, keeps subjects close to their verbs, and breaks complex rules into tabulated lists.
- Semantic preservation: keeps legal terms of art, such as "indemnify," "best efforts," and "res judicata," word for word.
- Structural optimization: leads with the big picture and uses informative headings.
- Editorial enforcement: applies U.S. punctuation, typography, and citation mechanics drawn from the ABA and SEC guides.
How it works
- Analyze the text for structural, word-choice, and syntactic problems.
- Audit it with a table that has one row for each of the skill's six sections, including the terms of art it kept.
- Rewrite it in plain English, applying rules such as eliminating "shall" and "and/or."
Sources
The rules draw on the SEC Plain English Handbook, the Federal Plain Language Guidelines, Bryan Garner's legal writing standards, and the ABA Section of Litigation style sheet.
Why not just prompt for "plain English"?
A generic prompt simplifies everything, including the words that carry legal effect. Turning "best efforts" into "try hard," or dropping "time is of the essence," changes what a contract does. This skill simplifies the prose around those terms and leaves the terms themselves untouched.
Use cases
- Making SaaS agreements and other contracts easier to read.
- Tightening litigation briefs for courts that prefer concise, active writing.
- Turning internal policies into readable employee handbooks.
- Removing filler and repetitive "AI-isms" from AI-generated drafts.
Known limitations
The skill follows U.S. English legal conventions. It does not replace review by a lawyer.
Free and open source
This skill is free and MIT-licensed. The latest version, with before-and-after examples, is at https://github.com/fayerman-source/deslop.
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