This paper discusses the results of part of an ongoing project studying an aspect of real world language usage, the comprehension of standard jury instructions. Problems in the comprehension of these instructions include the memory load that they impose, the fact that most instructions are read only once, and the fact that instructions are written in legal language, with vocabulary, syntax and semantic usage unfamiliar to the average juror. The purpose of the study is to isolate the lexical, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic factors which impede comprehension. The study attempts to get at what jurors actually comprehend and remember when they hear a jury instruction, by having them paraphrase jury instructions. Thirty-five jurors called for jury duty in Prince George's County, Maryland, but who had as yet not served, were divided into four groups and presented on a one-to-one basis with three practice instructions and eleven test instructions. In addition, a type of phrase-structure analysis was used to break the instructions into their constituent meanings to isolate factors impeding comprehension. Results are given for two instructions; they reveal that comprehension difficulties do exist and that there are discrepancies between lawyers' and jurors' judgements of instruction difficulty. (CLK)