Definition
A drafting term used in legal instruments to refer to content appearing earlier in the same document. When a deed, will, contract, statute, or other formal instrument uses "hereinbefore," it directs the reader backward — to something already stated, defined, or listed within the four corners of that document.
The term functions as an internal cross-reference. It does not point to an external source, a prior instrument, or a separate proceeding. It means: look earlier in this very document.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Synonym of "hereinabove" — above, in this document.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "In the preceding part of this (writing, document, book, etc.)."
The common and legal meanings are essentially identical in function. The meaningful distinction is one of register and consequence: in ordinary writing, the term is archaic and rarely encountered outside legal or quasi-legal contexts. In legal instruments, however, its precision matters — "hereinbefore" is not interchangeable with a vague "above" or "previously mentioned," because it carries the interpretive weight of a defined internal reference. Courts construing a will or contract must treat it as limiting the reference to the document itself.
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Common Confusion
HEREINBEFORE / HEREINAFTER: These are directional opposites within the same document. "Hereinbefore" looks backward to what has already appeared; "hereinafter" looks forward to what is yet to come. Drafting errors that substitute one for the other can create genuine ambiguity about which provision or definition governs.
HEREINBEFORE / AFOREMENTIONED / ABOVE-STATED: These terms are functional cousins but not legal equivalents. "Aforementioned" may refer to something stated in a prior conversation, proceeding, or document. "Hereinbefore" is strictly internal to the present instrument. The distinction matters in interpretation: a court construing "hereinbefore" need not look outside the document.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with historical legal instruments — wills, deeds, indentures, trust agreements, contracts — will encounter "hereinbefore" as a navigational device the drafters used to chain provisions together within a single document. Understanding its scope is essential: when you see "hereinbefore" in a will clause, the question is always what has already been stated in that instrument, not what was said in related correspondence, prior wills, or extrinsic evidence.
Anderson's illustrative will clause is instructive precisely because it shows a real interpretive problem: "I give to the persons, societies and corporations to whom I have hereinbefore made bequests" was construed to mean those beneficiaries as they currently exist — not as they existed at the time of drafting. The word "hereinbefore" fixed the identity of the class by reference to the document's earlier provisions, but the word "now" in the full clause introduced a temporal dimension requiring further construction. This is a reminder that "hereinbefore" resolves one interpretive question (where to look) while leaving others open (what the referenced provision means).
In statutory drafting, "hereinbefore" appears most heavily in older legislation — 19th and early 20th century statutes in particular. Researchers consulting historical codes should expect it to function the same way: pointing to an earlier section of the same act. Modern drafting conventions generally replace it with a direct section reference (e.g., "as defined in Section 3"), which is more precise and less prone to ambiguity when instruments are amended.
The term is effectively obsolete in contemporary American drafting practice but remains fully operative in the historical corpus. A researcher who encounters it in a source document should not assume it is mere stylistic filler — it signals a deliberate internal cross-reference that must be traced.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law treats "hereinbefore" as equivalent to the Latin "ante" — meaning "before" in the sense of prior position within the document. The dictionary's single illustrative entry is a will clause, which reflects how heavily this term appears in testamentary instruments, where chains of bequests and conditional gifts frequently require internal cross-referencing.
Anderson does not elaborate on the term beyond the comparison to "ante" and the will example, which suggests the term was considered self-explanatory by practitioners of the era. Its meaning was not contested; its consequences were.
What Anderson's entry usefully flags — though briefly — is the interpretive problem lurking behind any "hereinbefore" clause: identifying the referenced class or provision with sufficient precision. The will example shows that even when the internal reference is clear in form, the substantive meaning of what was "hereinbefore" stated can require judicial construction.
No other major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus provide a dedicated entry, consistent with the term being treated as a drafting convention too routine to require extended definition.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term has no jurisdictional variation in meaning — it operates identically across common law jurisdictions. Variation arises only in how courts in different jurisdictions approach the interpretive consequences of an ambiguous "hereinbefore" cross-reference in a will or contract, which is governed by general principles of document construction applicable in that jurisdiction.
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