Legal language was an obstacle to justice because it was inaccessible to lay people who had to pay hefty sums to "a small cadre of initiates" with a monopoly on translating it into ordinary language, Ms Anne Barron, of the law department of the London School of Economics, told the conference.
Law was essentially verbal in character, being constructed in "verbal formulae" before becoming "a machinery for enforcing sanctions". "If these formulae are not clear, those who are subject to the law are unable to understand their legal rights and obligations. And this clearly has implications for the realisation of justice," she said.
If laws were incapable of being readily understood, it seemed the rule of law ideal was being betrayed, she said.
The more opaque the language, the higher the lay person's dependence on lawyers, and the wider the gap between the law as it is understood by the rich and by the poor.
Dependency on the legal profession itself could involve an injustice. For many people, their problem is "appropriated by the lawyer and shrouded in yet more layers of legalese".
"The expertise of doctors, teachers, social workers and others has come to be identified as a source of injustice, not so much on economic grounds, as because of the way it enables important aspects of our lives to be commandeered by those who claim to `know what is best' for us on the basis of their special training.
"Lawyers have not escaped this new suspicion of claims to professional authority."
The realisation of justice and the rule of law ideal required more accessible legal language, even if it could never be the same as ordinary language.
She said getting rid of the jargon "could clear the way for a more informed lay perspective on what legal rights are worth having and defending, and more meaningful lay participation in formulating and giving shape to them".