In Lifting the Fog of Legalese,1 Joseph Kimble offered a set of guidelines for writing in
clearer language. He does not provide a method for the interpretation and grammatical
analysis of those guidelines. This article provides that analysis. Examples are taken from
the USA Patriot Act 2001 to explicate and validate them and to assess whether that Act is
expressed clearly, simply, and precisely. It was found that that Act contained some long
and syntactically complicated sentences which result from the unnecessary adherence to
the single provision/single sentence structure. If adherence to this structure were
abandoned, comprehension could be enhanced and the legislation made more accessible
to lawyers and lay persons alike