In 1975 I convinced First National City Bank (Citibank) to simplify its consumer loan agreement. How can the premier bank in the country ask consumers to sign and be bound by a completely unintelligible legal agreement that even their inhouse lawyers couldn't read? In creating this project it was clear to me that this was a business. So I spent five years promoting plain English for business and government, selling this specialized service throughout the country, hiring and training a staff to handle incoming projects. At the same time I helped establish a graduate program at Carnegie Mellon University, to provide a laboratory for advancing the state of the art of Simplification and incidentally, to train talented people to staff our highly specialized service. I also joined the faculty of Fordham University Law School to teach the first plain English writing course for lawyers.
– Alan Siegel
