| | Prompt: (1) In terms of effecting social change with words, what can lawyers accomplish that novelists or journalists cannot? (2) If lawyers possess a unique ability to effect social change, does it stem from their knowledge of, and proximity to, power structures?
Authors and journalists effected grand-scale change by laying the groundwork for many prominent social reforms and by successfully shaping American public opinion |
| | -- ScottThurman - 25 Mar 2009 |
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< | The restrictions on the use of language lawyers face, which Scott identifies, are the source of the power and legitimacy attorneys wield |
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> | The restrictions on the use of language lawyers face, including those which Scott identifies, are a primary source of the power and legitimacy attorneys wield. When lawyers speak, their legitimacy is based in the idea that they are constrained by the law to be precise, and to have some established principle, precedent, doctrine, (the state, as you rightly say) to back up their claims. That’s why anyone listens to lawyers (when and if they do) at all. |
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< | When lawyers speak, their legitimacy is based in the idea that they are constrained by the law to be precise, and to have some established principle, precedent, doctrine, (the state, as you rightly say) to back up their claims. That’s why anyone listens to lawyers (when and if they do) at all. |
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> | When attempting to effect social change, lawyers must be at their most creative. For example, innovatively using centuries-old legislation (the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789) to litigate in U.S. court human rights abuses committed abroad. |
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< | When attempting to effect social change, lawyers must be at their most creative
If social change, as Scott says, “moves over multiple channels,” effective lawyering may be indispensible |
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> | If social change, as Scott says, “moves over multiple channels,” effective lawyering will require a nuanced understanding the potential and limitations of the power that lawyers wield. This understanding can help us work more effectively with other worthy occupations to advance our aims. |
| | Example: the immediate result of Sinclair’s Jungle critique of the institutionalized exploitation of the working class was public outcry – the lasting result was the passage of the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts (1906); |
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< | Understanding the potential and limitations of lawyering can help us work more effectively with other worthy occupations to advance our aims. |
| | -- LeslieHannay - 26 Mar 2009 |
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< | When lawyers speak, their legitimacy is based in the idea that they are constrained by the law to be precise, and to have some established principle, precedent, doctrine, (the state, as you rightly say) to back up their claims. That’s why anyone listens to lawyers (when and if they do) at all.
At the same time, Leslie, using simple and concise language is often considered to be mark of an effective attorney from a trial advocacy perspective. Attorneys in trial practice are usually instructed to abandon their formalistic, overly-precise lawyerspeak to better make things happen for their side. I'd imagine lawyers attempting to communicate with the general public would adopt a similar strategy.
-- MolissaFarber - 26 Mar 2009
using simple and concise language is often considered to be mark of an effective attorney
Yes, that is what I meant by "precise" - if "precise" may be taken to connote "turgid, hyper-technical, or inaccessible to a lay audience," I was not aware of it and did not intend that meaning. |
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> | Simple and concise language is often more effective than formalistic, overly-precise lawyerspeak. Context and intended audience is an important consideration in choosing the words that we use. |
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< | -- LeslieHannay - 28 Mar 2009 |
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> | -- MolissaFarber - 26 Mar 2009; -- LeslieHannay - 29 Mar 2009 |