Our state Supreme Court recently approved directive 07-22 issued by the Administrative Office of the Courts. The directive implements the New Jersey Policy on Accessible & Inclusive Communications, which reflects a significant step in modernizing court communications in sensible and inclusive ways. The judiciary is now directed to post online all publicly available information, making it accessible to smartphone users and available for downloading and printing. Courts also are instructed to write in short, clear sentences when possible and to avoid legal terminology and acronyms.

Inclusivity will be furthered in several ways, including by substituting inclusive descriptions for exclusionary gender-based terms (for example, “spouse” or “partner” should be used instead of “husband” or “wife”). Titles or full names should be used instead of gendered honorifics (for example, “Attorney Smith” instead of “Ms. Smith”), and outdated gendered references should be eliminated (for example, “ladies and gentlemen of the jury” should be replaced by “members of the jury” or “jury”).

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