Legal professions are no exception — in fact, lawyers might use more confusing words and phrases than people in any other field. From "upstanding" to "wobbler," we compiled examples of terms that make sense to lawyers, but make outsiders scratch their heads. Read on to get a glimpse into a lawyer's lexicon:
Legal terms can be extremely confusing for laypeople, yet lawyers seem to employ them at whim. Every law school student is required to learn this, so they pick it up over their years in law school, use it in their professional lives daily and eventually might not even realise they are using it.
When talking about two main types of lawyers, we’re actually referring to criminal law professionals. These are prosecutors and defense attorneys. While prosecutors represent the state, defense attorneys represent people accused by the state. What is the highest-paid type of lawyer?
Top Five Ways Lawyers Use Dictation Technology 1. Ease Time and Billing Entries 2. Track and Document Expenses for Reimbursement 3. Optimize Office Tasks 4. Reduce Time Spent Typing Documents 5. Create More Impactful Reports, Fast Subscribe to Attorney at Work
Doublespeak Jargon Examples"collateral damage" instead of "multiple fatalities""detainee" instead of "prisoner of war""enhanced interrogation" instead of "torture""ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide""extrajudicial killing" instead of "assassination""negative cash flow" instead of "spending more than you make"More items...
The main difference between euphemism and doublespeak is that euphemism refers to the use of milder words to replace harsh words, whereas doublespeak refers to the deliberate distortion of language.
Doublespeak is not language. It is anti-language. The purpose of language is to transfer a truth from one mind to another; the purpose of doublespeak is to transfer a falsehood disguised as a truth.
: language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth also : gobbledygook.
Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs and "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable.
Definition of euphemism : the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant also : the expression so substituted.
In this page you can discover 28 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for double talk, like: bull, bunk, clear, balderdash, baloney, doublespeak, drivel, gibberish, hokum, jazz and nonsense.
gibberish, gobbledygook. (also gobbledegook), rigmarole.
Doublethink may happen because of someone being willfully perverse or as a result of faulty logic. Doublethink is a word coined by George Orwell for the novel 1984. Doublespeak is the use of euphemistic or ambiguous language in order to disguise what one is actually saying.
Some examples of jargon include:Due diligence: A business term, "due diligence" refers to the research that should be done before making an important business decision.AWOL: Short for "absent without leave," AWOL is military jargon used to describe a person whose whereabouts are unknown.More items...•
Euphemism examples:“Passed away” instead of “died”“Let go” instead of “fired”“Make love” instead of “sex”“Put down” instead of “euthanized”
Although both attorneys and lawyers obtain law degrees, they don’t do the same job. An attorney actually practices law by representing other indivi...
When talking about two main types of lawyers, we’re actually referring to criminal law professionals. These are prosecutors and defense attorneys....
In our article, we covered how much lawyers working in different fields earn. Those with the highest salary are medical lawyers, and they earn over...
Choosing the best type of lawyer career depends on multiple factors, including your interests and ambitions. Our article delves deeper into differe...
This is a good career path for all those who love the law. It offers good salaries, benefits, and different working environments, depending on whic...
Different types of lawyers specialize in different areas of law. Some lawyers mostly do the work outside of the courtroom, such as drafting contracts and wills, preparing documents to comply with a process, negotiating deals, and advising clients on a legal problem. There are also lawyers who present cases in court or litigations ...
Also known as corporate lawyers, business lawyers are legal eagles who cover a more full range of expertise in building, managing, maintaining, transferring and dissolving a business. Lawyers in this area of practice deal with the formation of the company, employment contracts, tax compliance, acquisitions, and mergers.
Family Lawyers. These are lawyers who handle all kinds of domestic cases, such as divorce, legal separation, child custody, adoption, paternity, alimony, prenuptial or postnuptial agreements, and emancipation. But family attorneys may also handle reproductive rights cases, and their work may intersect with other areas of the law.
Since these are professions that ascribe to a set of standards , they have greater professional responsibilities that may be challenged in the courtroom or in litigation.
Real estate lawyers provide legal guidance for individuals or companies seeking to buy or sell a property. They work with their clients and the real estate agents to draft documents and ensure that the paperwork is legally binding. They may also negotiate for the buyer or seller, or represent a property owner during a foreclosure dispute.
But family attorneys may also handle reproductive rights cases, and their work may intersect with other areas of the law. For instance, if there’s a criminal investigation of child abuse or a domestic violence case, or if there’s a juvenile delinquency case, a family lawyer may also work with a criminal lawyer. 3. Estate Planning Lawyers.
They need to have expert knowledge in both business and innovation trends. IP lawyers may also negotiate settlements on behalf of the creator or inventor if someone has infringed on their work, such as in cases where branded goods are faked and sold for a lower price in the market.
These two terms are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference between lawyers and attorneys. Although both have a law degree, lawyers and attorneys don’t do the same jobs.
There are plenty of job opportunities for lawyers, but after finishing law school, it can be hard to decide what type of law practice you want to pursue. There are numerous career paths that you can choose based on your plans, ambitions, and perhaps most importantly, your interests.
Business lawyers or corporate lawyers ensure that all operations of an individual company are conducted within the legal framework of local, state, and federal laws. A business lawyer is involved in everything from liability and intellectual property disputes to mergers and revising all sorts of legal documentation.
Why not plain English? Part of the reason why Legalese can seem so unfamiliar to a layperson is so that a word or phrase can have a very specific meaning in law that is completely different when used outside of it. If common words are used, it might be confusing to know which context the word or phrase is used in.
Legalese continues to be in use partly because it saves time. It can be challenging to explain a complicated legal concept fully while also keeping it brief. If you’ve ever watched the Simpsons, you may recall Bart Simpson yelling about a force majeure, which is used to describe unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract. There is a lot more to the concept than just that, and legal people know this and all this complexity can essentially be boiled down and condensed into two Latin words.
The law has been around for a very long time, and a lot of law is based on precedents and past cases to interpret the law today. This is called Stare decisis (defined further below). This means that many of the legalese used today was used hundreds of years ago and why many legal terms sound antiquated and old.
Using legalese also in some ways allows for precision because law students and lawyers are required to know the specific and precise meaning of each of these legal terms, and all the things that go with it. Another way to look at it is that it provides consistency.
Arbitration A form of dispute resolution, where both parties consent to being bound by the decision of an arbitrator or arbitral tribunal , who are often chosen by the parties. Arbitration is often used in the resolution of commercial disputes as an alternative to litigation.
For example, the District Court and the High Court must follow the precedents set by the Court of Appeal.
Legal terms can be extremely confusing for laypeople, yet lawyers seem to employ them at whim. Every law school student is required to learn this, so they pick it up over their years in law school, use it in their professional lives daily and eventually might not even realise they are using it. These legal terms is legalese. While some think that legalese may confuse and alienate their clients and laypeople, there are others who remain firm proponents of it.
First up is THE Mac Lawyer himself, Ben Stevens, who runs The Mac Lawyer blog as well as his three-lawyer family law practice in South Carolina. The firm has been all-Mac for a long time.
Next is Victor Medina, who runs the Medina Law Group in New Jersey. Victor is the organizer of the MILOfest Conference — an annual “Mac-Lovin’ Lawyers Event” held in the fall. If you’re interested in learning from other Mac-using lawyers, MILOfest is a can’t-miss event.
Jeremy Worley is a shareholder at the Sanders Law Firm in New Mexico. The firm has three offices, 13 attorneys and more than 30 computer stations. Jeremy was instrumental in transitioning his entire firm from Windows to Mac about six years ago.
David Sparks is affectionately known throughout the Mac-using community as “MacSparky,” since that’s where you’ll find his blog. David recently left a large firm in Orange County, California, where he used his Mac, to start his own firm — where, of course, he still uses a Mac.
Instead of typing, you can dictate the substance of a document into your smartphone, and then send it through a speech recognition software program. The program will convert it to text, which you or your assistant can then edit and quickly complete. For lawyers who are slow typists, or who may want to make use of time away from their computers, dictation can facilitate writing, editing and commenting on documents. Consider, too, how mobile dictation allows for better use of downtime, creating billable hours out of what was once lost time.
Here are five ways dictation technology can help you to operate more efficiently and improve your billable hours — besides just dictating a memo, letter or brief. 1. Ease Time and Billing Entries. While the practice of law has evolved in many ways over the last few decades, the pain of time and billing recording has remained constant.
The workflow functions of some digital dictation software can be helpful in other areas, such as reassigning work from assistants who are swamped to others who have more capacity. Work can be easily shared or reassigned with a simple drag-and-drop function.
But while today’s lawyers tend to be more tech-savvy than past generations, they still use their voices to accomplish a lot every day. Dictation has evolved and become an active part of productive law firms.
I believe that the most important skill in a lawyer is argument, which must be stimulated at all times, but this argument must be based on legal concepts combined with strong cognition, perception, critical thinking, logical reasoning, capacity for expression and mental control and emotional.
If you were a defense attorney, what would you want the jurors to know about the limits of forensic evidence?
Core Grammar for Lawyers is a comprehensive online self-directed learning program designed to assist law students, pre-legal students, paralegals, and practicing lawyers acquire the core grammar and correctness skills that are prerequisites for successful legal writing.
Core grammar for lawyers is an important skill to develop prior to entering the field of law. Lawyers are often accused of over-hyphenated words and phrases that leave clients and other professionals with a poor impression of them. Lawyers have a lot at stake in core grammar for lawyers answers being presented as expert legal advise.