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3 Scribes J. Leg. Writing 79 (1992)
Shall Must Go

handle is hein.journals/scrib3 and id is 87 raw text is: Shall Must Go Michele M. Asprey Why? For several years I have advocated that lawyers abandon shall. My reasons are: (1) The word is hardly ever used outside the legal communi- ty, and consequently: * Using shall puts lawyers out of step with the language of the general community; Nonlawyers don't understand the special way lawyers use shall in documents and laws; and (2) Lawyers misuse it. They confuse the imperative shall with the future tense and fail to distinguish between the various senses of shall in their documents. The distinctions drawn between these senses by commentators such as Reed Dickerson and Elmer Driedger are difficult to understand and apply, and have been ignored by most lawyers, who continue to misuse shall. In Place of Shal... My suggestion is to abandon shall altogether and, in its place, use: * Must for the imperative shall - whether we want to impose an obligation or a duty, or make a direction, whether or not we do it by contract or statute, and regardless of what the penalty is; * Will for the simple future; and * The present tense for just about everything else - for a statement of fact, legal result or agreement (the law or contract always speaking), as in:

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