Take a look at this video from TED talk. It’s Alan Siegel’s 5 minute talk on Simplifying legal jargon.
Now read this excerpt from Clay Shirky’s blog article, The Collapse of Complex Business Models
“When the value of complexity turns negative, a society plagued by an inability to react remains as complex as ever, right up to the moment where it becomes suddenly and dramatically simpler, which is to say right up to the moment of collapse. Collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification.”
Some good news in the conclusion (I hope it is for you):
“When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to. It’s easy to see the ways in which collapse to simplicity wrecks the glories of old. But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.”
Whilst it was heresy to simplify the law, it seems that it actually requires knowing complexity to be able to simplify effectively. Problem is that most professionals that have reached this level of complexity, first, benefit from it financially and second, struggle with what to eliminate. It is always easier to add…more and more. Until it all collapses!
Don’t underestimate the timing of Alan Siegel’s TED Talk. It may already be too late for many lawyers.
Jorge Colón's Blog 
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