Supreme Court and Code Commission back pilot to test plain-English court form terms

Justice Stephen McCullough told the commission that the Supreme Court supports replacing technical terms on court forms with plain-English equivalents and submitted a four‑page list of proposed translations for the commission to review. He said staff received feedback on the list and suggested the commission could pair existing technical terms with plain-English translations when submitting legislation. Commissioners discussed whether dual listings would be transitional or permanent and agreed that would be decided later.

Chair Marcus B. Simon proposed forming a workgroup that would include commission members, members of the forms committee, general district court clerks, practitioners, the Office of Executive Secretary (OES), and general district court judges to gather broad input. Senator Ryan T. McDougle suggested piloting form changes for a year before statutory changes to collect practitioner and clerk feedback. The commission voted to create the workgroup and direct staff to survey clerks for problematic forms to use as a starting point.