The purpose of such investigation is three-fold: (1) to determine the nature of the typology that configures the composition of contemporary EALP-type textbooks (2) to (re)define EALP in light of the new typology and (3) to determine the possible implications of such typology for legal English pedagogy. This paper investigates how English for Academic Legal Purposes-type (EALP) textbooks, published over the past three decades, have evolved and responded to the challenges of law school education.

Results of this endeavor will serve as basis for possible simplification or redrafting works of the said consumer-finance contract- a prospective groundbreaking project in the area of Forensic Linguistics in the Philippines. Moreover, the respondents’ perceived lack of understanding and familiarity of the document present 27 statistically significant relationship with their low paraphrase scores. Specifically, this study attempts to determine the comprehensibility of this particular material in the Philippine setting- a credit card terms and conditions document by answering the question: how comprehensible to consumers is the existing credit card terms and conditions document? Using two reader-based (cloze and paraphrase) tests in analyzing how respondents understand the contract, findings of the study reveal the low comprehensibility of the document validated using the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient statistical test. Hence, this paper seeks to validate in the local setting such studies done and therefore, examine how a consumer-finance contract is understood by certain consumers.

Several studies relate to the complexity of legal documents (Bhatia, 2010 Gibbons, 2004 Schuck, 1992, Tiersma, 1999) and call for the promotion of a clearer language that still preserves the legal meaning (Eagleson, 2004 Felsenfeld & Siegel, 1981 Gibbons, 2004 Kimble, 2000 Tiersma, 1999).

The flourishing movement for plain language in the international scene pushes for a pressing global ideological pursuit that legal documents directed at ordinary citizens, particularly known as consumer contracts, must be in a form that is understood by them.

And yet it moves significance