Scholars debate whether the word ‘shall’ is irredeemable

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted May 10, 2023 10:43 AM

Shall we ask legislators to stop using the slippery word “shall?” Shall we undertake the Herculean task of revising laws to specify which of its five meanings applies? Reviewing decades of scholarship and precedent on the confusion this shapeshifting word has caused throughout the country, the Virginia Court of Appeals identified two schools of thought on use of shall in legal drafting.One school thinks we can get a firm grip on shall by consistently giving it a mandatory meaning. The other group thinks “legal drafters …

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