In 2023, Clarity introduced its Hall of Fame. It recognizes someone who

• made a lasting, historically significant contribution to advancing plain legal language;
• specifically advocated for that change; and
• was or is a forceful writer who exemplified the power of plain language in their own writing.

2025 inductees

Robert Eagleson

Robert Eagleson for his groundbreaking plain-English work in Australia. Robert contributed extensively to the first plain-English legal document (a car insurance policy) in1976 and to the monumental report Plain English and the Law, by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. His publications include Writing in Plain English and over 60 monographs and articles on plain English, as well as some 50 books and articles on the English language.

From Peter Butt’s induction remarks for Robert Eagleson:

“Robert Eagleson was a giant amongst us.”

Robert was involved in ground-breaking plain-English work in Australia. In 1976, he contributed extensively to the country’s first-plain English legal document (a car insurance policy), a revolutionary document. Later, he served as a Commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission. Under his tutelage, the Commission produced the monumental report Plain English and the Law, which demonstrated that even complex legislation could be written in plain language. From 1983 to 1987, Robert was special adviser on plain language to the Australian Government. From 1987 to 2000, he acted as consultant in plain legal language to Mallesons Stephen Jacques, Australia’s largest law firm, where he rewrote its standard legal forms (precedents) into plain language. In 1990, he and Professor Peter Butt co-founded the Centre for Plain Legal Language at the University of Sydney. It continued its significant consulting, teaching, and redrafting work until 1997.

Robert was also consultant to Law Reform Commissions in Canada and New Zealand and conducted workshops in Canada, France, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, the UK, and the USA. He received a number of awards from the Australian Government and national and international professional associations for his contributions to plain writing and literacy.

His publications include Writing in Plain English and over 60 monographs and articles on plain English, as well as some 50 books and articles on the English language, including a dictionary of Shakespeare’s language for Oxford University Press.

At the PLAIN 2009 conference in Sydney, Robert was presented with the Plain Language Association International Award for an outstanding contribution to plain language internationally. (The award was later renamed the Christine Mowat Plain Language Achievement Award.)

Christine Mowat

Christine Mowat for her permanent influence on plain-language work in Canada and beyond. Christine has been a designer and developer of curriculum for writing programs, and a writer, speaker and facilitator of plain-language writing workshops for lawyers and other professionals. Her publications on plain language include the second edition of A Plain-Language Handbook for Legal Writers and more than 30 articles.

From the induction remarks for Christine Mowat, written by Joe Kimble:

“Christine leaves behind a permanent and extraordinary influence on the plain-language work that we are all committed to.”

Christine founded Wordsmith Associates, which taught plain-language courses for government, organizations, and corporations across Canada. In particular, during the first decade of the 2000s, Wordsmith did training for the securities commissions in 6 of Canada’s 10 provinces, conducted audits for them, and helped some of them develop style guides.

Christine wrote more than 30 articles, but her magnum opus is her two-volume Plain Language Handbook for Legal Writers, on which she collaborated with 29 plain-language experts around the world. It’s a rich and expansive collection of commentary, advice, exercises, testing methods, historical developments, future prospects, book summaries, before-and-after examples, and model documents. She spoke on plain language to countless legal organizations and at many international conferences on plain legal language, including those in the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Sweden, Mexico, and Canada. So valued were her contributions that the Plain Language Association has named its lifetime-achievement award the Christine Mowat Award.

Prof. Joseph (Joe) Kimble

Prof. Joseph (Joe) Kimble for his tireless advocacy and his historically significant contributions to our field. Joe, a past President of Clarity, taught legal writing and legal drafting for more than 30 years. He has lectured throughout the United States and abroad and published many articles on legal writing. Joe’s books on clear legal writing include Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please and Essentials for Clear Legal Drafting (with Bryan Garner). Since 1999, Joe has been a drafting consultant on all U.S. federal court rules.

From Julie Clement’s induction remarks for Joe Kimble:

“Professor Kimble’s work has reshaped the law in ways that will endure.”

Professor Kimble has been a tireless advocate for plain language since the mid-1980s, when he began teaching at Cooley Law School in Michigan. He has published scores of articles and five influential books—including Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business Government, and Law, which summarizes 60 empirical studies on the enormous benefits of plain language. See his full bibliography here.

Joe is the longtime (since 1988) editor of the Plain Language column in the Michigan Bar Journal, senior editor of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, and editor of the Redlines column in Judicature. He has won 11 national and international awards, including three Burton Awards, the highest award from the State Bar of Michigan, and lifetime-achievement award from his teaching colleagues in the legal-writing field.  He has given more than 225 presentations and seminars throughout the world.

Since 2000, he has been a drafting consultant on all U.S. federal court rules. He led the work of redrafting—for clarity, consistency, and plain language—the Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, and Rules of Evidence. He did the same for the Michigan Rules of Evidence.

In his honor, Cooley Law School created the Kimble Center for Legal Drafting, which continues to promote plain language after his retirement for classroom teaching. It has, for instance, created powers of attorney—free, fillable forms—that have been downloaded over 25,000 times

You can learn more about these inductees, and hear their acceptance remarks, by watching the 2025 Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

2023 inductees

David Mellenkoff

From Joe Kimble’s induction remarks for Professor Mellinkoff: David Mellinkoff’s 1963 book, The Language of the Law, provided the intellectual foundation for the modern-day plain language movement.

Professor Mellinkoff taught at UCLA School of Law for 20 years. He wrote several other influential books, but The Language of the Law is his masterpiece. Above all, he exploded the myth that traditional legal language is precise, and he did so with countless examples. In fact, he traced the development of legal language over 15 centuries, and he showed beyond doubt that legal language is (in his words) unclear, wordy, pompous and dull. The book is simply a tour de force of scholarship.

Here’s a telling quote from the book:

“Lawyers have been telling each other for so many years that the language of the law is precise that they have come to believe it. Law language is but rarely precise. In a few particulars, yes. As a whole pattern of communication, no.”

It is entirely fitting that the Professor Mellinkoff be the first inductee into Clarity’s Plain Language Hall of Fame

Dr. Ginny Redish

From Joe Kimble’s induction remarks for Ginny Redish: Ginny has been fighting the good fight longer than any of us.

Janice (Ginny) Redish was the original director of the legendary Document Design Center in the US, founded in 1979. What the Center did before anyone else is to conduct research and gather evidence to support broad plain-language principles. That research and the evidence-based guidelines were published in two books: Document Design—A  Review of the Relevant Research (1980) and Guidelines for Document Designers (1981; updated by Ginny in 2014).

Besides many, many publications and journals and her book chapters and her countless workshops, Ginny has written a superb booklet called How to Write Regulations (and Other Legal Documents) in Clear English and her brilliantly illustrated Letting Go of the Words for web-based writing.

She was also the original formulator of our now official definition of plain language about readers being able to find, understand, and use information.

Finally, nobody has been more willing than Ginny to help all of us by sharing her time and information and advice. She has been doing it now for more than four decades.

Martin Cutts

From Joe Kimble’s induction remarks for Martin Cutts (who died in 2026): In 1979, Martin and Chrissy Maher marched into Parliament Square and shredded a heap of official forms written in gobblelygook. Thus was the Plain Words campaign born in a fanfare of publicity that has echoed around the world.

Martin, like Ginny Redish, was a true plain-language pioneer. He eventually formed his own consultancy organization, the Plain Language Commission. He gave hundreds of training sessions and wrote four highly regarded books. Three of them, Clarifying EC Regulations, Clarifying Euro Law and Lucid Law, are still available for free on the Commission’s website. The fourth, the Oxford Guide to Plain English, now in its fifth edition, has helped thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, learn the principles of plain language.

After that first long-ago demonstration in Parliament Square, Martin continued to be a master at drawing attention to opaque, unfair public communication—perhaps most notably, the parking signs in Buxton, Derbyshire, over which he waged a successful 18th month battle that led to appearances on national TV.

His influence, in a word, was remarkable—and will continue to be, because the three books mentioned above will remain on the Commission’s website.

You can learn more about these inductees, and hear Ginny’s and Martin’s acceptance remarks, by watching the 2023 Hall of Fame induction ceremony.