Gender neutrality in legal writing software

The concept of inclusive legal writing is an opportunity for lawyers to be at the forefront of balancing grammatical correctness and cultivation of gender inclusiveness. Gender neutrality is important when writing about people because it is more accurate not. The supreme court and genderneutral language duke law. Augmented writing technology boosts diversity initiatives.

How to accommodate gendernonbinary individualsneither. They and them, their, and themselves has for many centuries been used as a genderneutral thirdpersonplural personal pronoun. Most modern legal writing texts and style manuals recommend that writers use genderneutral language. Federal appellate judges choices about genderneutral language. Associate professor and director of advanced legal writing programs, golden gate. Legistics genderneutral language department of justice. But the battle against genderneutral language is surely a losing cause, reports melanie newman it is more than a decade since former home secretary jack straw announced future laws would be genderneutral. The us technology giant has included the new feature in its latest version of word, the popular word processing software.

David mellinkoff, the language of the law, at vii 1963. Conversations around gender and gender neutrality are becoming more and more mainstream. Thomson reuters reported that in the past year 2018, there has been an increase in the number of clients requesting gender neutral. Legal writers indeed have many phrasing techniques available to avoid using they as a genderneutral singular pronoun. Microsoft has launched new software to suggest edits to writing that are politically correct. Use of gender neutral pronouns in legal drafting legislation law. Managi ng the personal pronouns 2 british columbia law institute. One of grahams goals was to create more gender neutral. Gender neutral language the use of genderneutral language may seem unnecessary to some writers, but the consistent use of masculine pronouns leaves the impression that women could not be among the group to which the writer is referring. To solve this problem, genderneutral terms are popping up that can be used to refer to nonbinary people or to talk about people without specifying their gender.

The use of genderneutral language may seem unnecessary to some writers. Augmented writing technology uses vast collections of data points to help users predict how audiences will respond to their messages. Microsoft word will change your words to be gender inclusive. Because some clients may find genderspecific language offensive, contract drafters are wise to use genderneutral language when possible. Gender neutral language chicagokent college of law. As society moves towards treating all genders equally, legal contracts should too. By writing dear sirs, some lawyers feel they are holding out against political correctness. The supreme court and genderneutral language ggu law. How to write genderneutral contracts the national law forum.

Genderneutral language in supreme court decisions prove there are 2 justices who totally get it. Genderneutral language in supreme court decisions prove. For many, the answer is cl ear and straightf orward the masculine pronouns embrace all entiti es and fill in g the blanks with he and his is acceptable and appropriate. Margaret mccallum, unb faculty of law, december 2008 topics suggested answers are given at the end of this document, not at the end of each section. The number of people identifying as gender nonbinarymeaning, as neither male nor femaleis on the rise, shifting the diversity conversation and raising new compliance challenges. Using data science to reveal hidden gender bias in job descriptions, textio will spellcheck gender bias and give replacement options for all highlighted phrases where a gender neutral synonym is. However, the consistent use of masculine pronouns provides an impression that women are excluded from the group to which the writer is referring. It will apply artificial intelligence to recommend users to write in a way that does not discriminate against a particular gender.