1 IntroductionThe present paper discusses results of an assessment questionnaire carried out on group of lawyers at end of a course of legal English. It focuses on language of contracts as perceived and formulated by Italian lawyers and legal executives working with English. It is result of an intensive course of legal English taught at an important company close to Udine, a leader in its sector, interested in developing a better understanding of how to write 'correct' English contracts in their international business activities. The study shows how Italian learners' perceptions, not only of language, but also of English as a lingua franca (and, as such, continually modified by non-English speaking businesspeople around world) may change our view of what is 'correct' or 'acceptable' in writing contracts.The paper sets out to present course at basis of research. It then moves on to describe methodology, Plain Language Movement and problems Italian lawyers face when dealing with legal English and contracts written in English. A brief analysis of major problems encountered follows, together with examples of original and corrected parts of contracts. The paper then presents answers of assessment questionnaire filled in by participants at end of course.During course, two examples of contracts (contract A and contract B) created in-company were used. The course was meant to show how these contacts can be modified and improved, hence changes to be made to them were suggested during course, in terms of content and style of 'contract English'.The course was structured following request from company, on one hand, to help their lawyers to understand legal English in contracts and, on other, to teach them how to write contracts following up-to-date conventions, and avoiding influence of Italian language and its legal terminology. To that aim, some hours were devoted to improving general layout of a contract, and others to language of contracts, particularly focusing on modal verbs and eliminating outdated expressions. The two contracts created in-house were deconstructed in view of principles of modern contract writing, following K.A. Adams' guidelines (Adams 2008) and re-written together with lawyers. Time was limited so course had to focus on one 'textbook' alone - hence various references that will be made to Adams' book.The meeting of a language teacher, on one side, and representatives of profession, on other, offered a unique opportunity to study both points of view - correct language, correct use as opposed to 'it works this way too' and 'this is how we've done it so far' attitudes. Concepts such as 'correct', 'clear', etc. will be used throughout this paper. They are both controversial and difficult concepts to define and here their meaning will relate only to their commonly accepted definitions in linguistics (Spolsky 1998).The research methodology draws from theoretical framework offered by sociolinguistics (Spolsky 1998) and applied linguistics. The sociolinguistic framework in this article follows patterns and behaviours of a professional category - lawyers - who are trying to learn how their English-speaking colleagues apply English language in writing legal contracts. Language communicates meaning but it also communicates social and geographical backgrounds. Moreover, the social prestige or stigma associated with these variations makes language a source of social and political power (Spolsky 1998:5), a fact of which lawyers are well aware.This research has some limitations that must be taken into account. First, this research into users' perceptions could not be replicated, since it is very difficult to find a similar group of people who want to improve such a specific field - contract English for non-native speakers of English - in such a specialised field as legal language. …