The sales contract at Sterling Motors in Reno these days is presented in plain English without a "wherefore" or a "party of the first part" to be found.
The results? Steve Lewis, president of the auto dealership, says he's closing sales more easily because customers no longer wonder what's hidden in the fine print.
John Sandler, the fellow who translated the dealership's contract into easily understandable English, hopes that another result might be the success of his new business that specializes in legal translation.
Sandler, a former attorney and a former judge, is careful to keep himself away from anything that might be construed as the practice of law.He doesn't offer legal advice.
He doesn't promise that his translation will leave the document's meaning unchanged.
And he assumes that his customers know what's in the documents before he starts work.
All Sandler does, in short, is make his best effort at rewriting the legalese so the customers of a business know more about what they're signing.
His firm, The Document Doc, strips unnecessary and archaic words out of contracts and other documents.
The twists and tangles are removed from convoluted sentences.
"Nearly all non-lawyers have been asked at some point to sign something they don't understand," Sandler said last week.
"When this happens, folks feel either intimidated, sign it anyway and then worry, or irritated, refuse to sign and then wonder if they've passed up a good deal.
Either of these results can be a stumbling block to doing business, because mistrust underlies both."
That was the experience of Lewis when he used a traditional sales contract at Sterling Motors.
"People were apprehensive.
They would read six pages of legalese, and it turned them off," he said.
To the task of reducing legal documents to plain English, Sandler brings a law degree, eight years experience as a probate judge and 11 years work as a practicing attorney all in Maine.
He's not a licensed attorney in Nevada.
On the writing side, Sandler is a published poet and lyricist.
In nonfiction, he's written for law reviews and newspapers.
He's also gone through a spell in which he was profoundly weary of the law and the legal business.
In his mid-life crisis, he developed a business that created pet ID tags at weekend flea markets.
It proved almost as lucrative as the law and allowed Sandler to travel the country.
He augments his IDtag business by teaching classes in tax strategies for small business.
The Document Doc, whose only customer so far has been Sterling Motors, prices its services at $80 an hour with a $20 minimum.
The Document Doc at work: Before: "Included within the terms and conditions of this Agreement are the costs associated with Dealer inspection of a vehicle meeting Customer's criteria.
If additional inspections are requested, Purchaser agrees to pay all reasonable costs associated with said inspections." After: "The expense of my inspection of a vehicle meeting your standards is included in this agreement; if you want additional inspections you will pay for them."
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