Symbolic Logic: A Razor-Edged Tool for Drafting and Interpreting Legal Documents

A LARGE amount of the litigation based on written instruments-whetherstatute, contract, will, conveyance or regulation--can be traced to the draftsman'sfailure to convey his meaning clearly. Frequently, of course, certainitems may purposely be left ambiguous, but often the question in issue is dueto an inadvertent ambiguity that could have been avoided had the draftsmanclearly expressed what he intended to say. In this Article it is suggested thata new approach to drafting, using certain elementary notions of symbolic logic,can go a long way towards eliminating such inadvertent ambiguity. This newapproach makes available to draftsmen a technique that achieves some of theclarity, precision and efficiency of analysis that symbolic logic provides. Inaddition, it can be a valuable aid in moving towards a more comprehensiveand systematic method of interpretation, as well as drafting.