Obiter is often amazed at the quality of many lawyers' writing skills - or rather we are often amazed at the poor quality of the correspondence we receive.

No wonder clients find their lawyers unapproachable when the traditional style of obtuse legal writing shows no sign of disappearing, and young lawyers appear all too keen to emulate their elders and throw in as many hereintobefores as they can.

And all this at a time when, according to Swiss lawyer Nedim Peter Vogt, writing without irony in International Legal Practitioner magazine, 'English has become the lingua franca' of international lawyers.

City firm CMS Cameron McKenna claims to be taking the issue seriously, and it recently hosted a talk by Lynne Truss, author of the acclaimed grammar book 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' as part of a firm-wide initiative to use plain, clear English.

It could start with its press releases, such as the one about Ms Truss, which sadly included the odd error, such as the phrase 'CMS Cameron McKenna is the only law firm who have thought of using this book...' Perhaps 'the only law firm which has thought...' would have been better.

But the problem spreads across the profession.

Take this unexceptional example from a letter from a firm in Sussex received recently about a subscription to the Gazette's sister publication, Litigation Funding: 'We recently wrote to you in order to provide you with an application for subscription to this publication.

'We do not appear to have received a copy of the same from you or an acknowledgement of our application and would be grateful to hear from you in this respect with an acknowledgement of our application and confirmation of when we may hear from you with a copy of the latest publication.'

We suggest it would have been better to write: 'We recently returned a subscription form for Litigation Funding.

We have received neither an acknowledgement nor the latest issue since.

Could you let us know what is happening?'