By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
There was a judge who was a former clerk of court, the assistant of a judge. He often bragged that he was more competent than his boss judge because he reviewed for the bar exams seven times. He finally passed and became a lawyer.
Then he became a judge by virtue of a political recommendation.
But he later got disbarred because the title of a parcel of land being litigated before him ended up in his name. So the land became his.
That came to pass due to some vagueness in a document that the judge might have made the parties or one of them to sign.
This came to mind when we were editing a legal notice about the revocation of a special power of attorney regarding a parcel of land in Baguio. The document was drafted and notarized in the USA.
The legal notice was drafted by one of our staff. It was about the revocation of a special power op attorney (SPA) and also another SPA executed by the same person. Somehow the notice did not convey the whole idea behind the document. It was vague. It took me about 15 minutes to finish the two sentence notice. What a waste of time.
By the way, a SPA is the legalese for a written authorization.
This piece is about the penchant of lawyers to come up with documents full of legal jargon. Sometimes they are not clear. I guess that is how lawyers make money. To come up with unclear documents. If you want to be a good writer, don’t write like a lawyer.
When you go to a lawyer to have any document drafted, you should be able to understand its content clearly. If it is not clear, have the lawyer redraft it. Otherwise, you might end up actually giving away your property because of vagueness. After all, your are paying the lawyer. Let him earn his fee by making him redraft vague documents until you are satisfied. If you are challenged in understanding legal documents, get a second opinion. A good lawyer is one who can make documents simple and understandable to the common man.
Don’t be shy about making your lawyer having to work hard for you. It is better to pay a little bit more than losing valuable assets due to having signed a document you were not clear about.
Here is a joke about shyness. An Ibaloi allegedly said, “Mababa-in kami. Ngem no mabartek kami ket mangibaba-in kami.” Shy that so many of them are when they are sober, a number of them become so talkative when they become tipsy.”
If you want them to sign away their land in your favor, make them sign a document when they are tipsy.
The bad karma resulting from that, however, will be yours alone.
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