Meet Mark Cohen
A self-proclaimed Word Nerd, Mark frequently puts his skills to work for businesses, organizations, and other lawyers, helping them create, organize, and edit legal documents. With more than forty years of experience, Mark is dedicated to promoting plain English over “Legalese.”
“Plain English lowers costs, improves productivity, increases credibility, and reduces misunderstandings.”
Experience and Background
Mark Cohen’s legal publications include six articles published in the prestigious American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts series and several published in The Colorado Lawyer. His satirical article, How to Draft a Bad Contract, was praised by Steven Pinker as “Simply brilliant.”
It has been republished in several law journals and is used in some law schools. His non-legal articles have appeared in magazines that include Modern Dad, Inside Kung-Fu, and Camping & RV. He wrote two mysteries published by a subsidiary of Time-Warner, and his first mystery, The Fractal Murders, was a BookSense selection.
Affiliations
Mark served on the Board of The Colorado Lawyer from 2009 to 2015, and served as the chairperson during 2012-2013. He studied logic at the graduate level for one year and is a member of the Institute of General Semantics.
Plain English Institute
Mark also founded a nonprofit, The Plain English Institute (PEI), which promotes plain English over Legalese. Documents that meet PEI’s certification standards are eligible to display the prestigious Plain English Certified seal on each approved document.
Expertise in Plain English
The distinction between litigation and transactional work is often artificial. Litigation arising out of transactions is almost always the result of poor drafting, insufficient investigation, or an incomplete negotiation. Usually, the document contained an ambiguity, failed to define a term, contained inconsistent provisions, or failed to address an important issue altogether.
A gifted writer with a talent for simplifying complex concepts, Mark’s passion is using and improving documents by replacing Legalese with plain English. Plain English is writing that is clear, concise, and easily understood by the target audience.
Testimonials
“Mark Cohen is a gifted writer and editor with an unmatched talent for cutting excess words, eliminating jargon, and simplifying complex concepts. InterNACHI is proud to be at the forefront of the plain English movement. Our 12,000 members love the plain English agreements Mark created for them to use with their clients, and the clients appreciate documents that are concise and easy to understand.” –Nick Gromicko, Founder, International Association of Certified Home Inspectors
