Steven said: “(Speaking for myself, claimant is a superior term to plaintiff, for the same reasons that we now use English rather than Law French.)”

But many English words (arguably all of them) come from other languages .. and if the oldest example of “plaintiff” being used in English in the OED is 1325, the oldest “claimant” is only 1747.

Moreover if we want to get rid of Law French words and expressions, we will need to get rid of defendant, tort, fee simple, laches, lien, bailiff, attorney, chose in action, chattel, escrow, estoppel, mortgage, jury, cy-près, etc.