Lawyers often draft documents that require an act by a notary public. The wording placed at the end is called a notarial certificate. This antiquated example is not uncommon to see even today, unfortunately:
Such poor drafting is no surprise considering that state laws and secondary sources relying on them promote legalese to lawyers and laymen.
Here is a plain English version of a notarial certificate similar to what I use, which includes all of the substance without unnecessary wordiness and redundancies contained in old-fashioned versions:
This short, straightforward notarial certificate supplies the document title, location, date, signer’s name, notary public’s title, and space for his signature and stamp. It also clearly conveys that the signer executed the document in the presence of a notary public and acknowledged it.
Like many other statutes and rules providing sample forms, Pennsylvania’s (outdated) Uniform Acknowledgment Act merely requires that the language used be similar in substance.
The 2010 Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, which the American Bar Association approved in August 2011, includes sample forms with improved language. With a small amount of time and effort, lawyers can clearly and concisely draft notarial certificates that contain all of the necessary elements.
*See the 1991 article, Plain English Acknowledgment Forms, published in the Michigan Bar Journal.
wow, they need to know a lot of things to become notaries..
I’m not in a position to comment about the extent of knowledge necessary for a notary public to perform his work, but I believe as lawyers, we have an obligation to our clients to draft understandable, plain-language documents whenever possible, and lawyers and others (including many notaries) should be aware that arcane, complicated language is not always necessary to make a document “legal.”