Definition
In legal usage, *informal* describes a document, proceeding, or instrument that is deficient in legal form — that is, not drawn up or conducted in the manner required by law, rule, or established practice. A document described as informal may be legally insufficient to accomplish its intended purpose, or it may be valid but subject to challenge or correction on formal grounds.
The term appears most often in two contexts:
1. *Informal instrument or writing*: A legal document — a will, contract, pleading, or deed — that lacks one or more elements of proper legal form. This may mean it omits required language, fails to follow prescribed structure, or was drafted without technical precision ("inartificially drawn up" in the historical formulations).
2. *Informal proceeding*: A legal process conducted outside the strict procedural requirements of a formal tribunal or official proceeding. Administrative law and probate law use this sense extensively — an informal hearing or informal probate proceeding is one where relaxed procedural rules apply by design, not by defect.
Common Language
*Modern common usage (Wiktionary)*: Not formal or ceremonious; suited for everyday use; not organized or structured; reflecting non-ceremonious, everyday language.
*Historical common usage (Webster's 1913)*: Not in the regular, usual, or established form; not according to official, conventional, prescribed, or customary forms or rules; irregular; hence, without ceremony.
The gap matters in legal research. In ordinary English, *informal* means relaxed, casual, or unofficial — a neutral to positive quality suggesting approachability. In classical legal usage, *informal* carries a stronger negative charge: a document or proceeding is informal because it falls short of required standards, not simply because it dispenses with ceremony. Modern administrative and probate law has partially rehabilitated the term — an *informal proceeding* is now often a deliberately designed, rule-governed alternative to a formal one, not a deficient version of it. Researchers must determine from context whether *informal* signals deficiency or designed informality.
Common Confusion
*Informal* vs. *invalid*: An informal instrument is not necessarily void or unenforceable. Deficiency in form may be curable, waivable, or immaterial depending on the governing law. Researchers encountering *informal* in historical sources should not assume the document was without legal effect — the consequences of informality depend on what was missing and the jurisdiction's treatment of such defects.
*Informal proceeding* (modern administrative/probate sense) vs. *informal* (classical deficiency sense): These are functionally distinct uses of the same word. In the Uniform Probate Code and administrative procedure frameworks, an *informal* proceeding is a recognized, authorized procedure. In older common law usage, calling a proceeding *informal* often meant it lacked required formality and might not bind the parties. Context and era are essential to correct interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
The word *informal* is deceptively simple and shifts meaning across legal domains and time periods. Several navigational points:
**Era matters substantially.** In 19th-century and early 20th-century sources — the period covered by Rapalje & Lawrence and earlier editions of Black's — *informal* almost exclusively signals formal deficiency. A will, deed, or pleading described as *informal* in these sources is being criticized or flagged as legally vulnerable, not simply described as casual. Researchers working in historical sources should treat the term as a red flag for formal sufficiency questions.
**Modern administrative and probate law inverts the valence.** Statutory frameworks — including the Uniform Probate Code and the Administrative Procedure Act framework — have institutionalized *informal* as a term of art for a recognized procedural track. An *informal* probate or an *informal* agency adjudication is a legitimate, defined process with its own rules. Conflating this modern technical sense with the historical deficiency sense produces serious misreadings.
**Pleadings and instruments.** When *informal* appears in connection with a pleading, the question is whether the defect is jurisdictional or merely technical. Courts have long distinguished between defects that deprive a court of authority and defects in form that can be disregarded or amended. The label *informal* in a case or treatise does not resolve which category applies.
**Cross-corpus connections.** The term surfaces across the Law Mind corpus in tax (informal guidance vs. binding authority), employment (informal workplace processes vs. formal grievance procedures), criminal procedure (informal charging vs. formal indictment), and probate. The meaning in each context is partially independent. Do not import the definition from one domain into another without checking the governing framework.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence are in complete agreement on the classical definition: *deficient in legal form; inartificially drawn up.* The formulation is nearly identical across both sources, reflecting a stable common law understanding that ran through the 19th century.
What both sources do not capture is the subsequent bifurcation of the term in 20th-century statutory law. Neither dictionary accounts for the modern administrative law sense or the Uniform Probate Code usage, which transformed *informal* from a term of deficiency into a term of art for a recognized procedural category. Researchers relying solely on these historical definitions will miss that evolution entirely.
Webster's 1913 is useful here as a bridge: it records the general English sense ("not according to official, conventional, prescribed, or customary forms") without the legal valence, and it preserves a now-obsolete secondary meaning ("deranged in mind") from Shakespeare — relevant only as a reminder that word meanings shift and that *informal* has never had a single fixed meaning even in general usage.
Jurisdictional Note
Jurisdictional variation is significant in the contexts where *informal* functions as a term of art. States that have adopted the Uniform Probate Code use *informal probate* as a defined statutory procedure; states operating under different probate frameworks may use the term differently or not at all. In administrative law, federal and state agencies vary in how formally they distinguish *informal* from *formal* adjudication and rulemaking. Research should always locate the governing statute or rule before relying on the term's meaning.