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MatthewZornTheOtherPaper 3 - 29 Apr 2010 - Main.MatthewZorn
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| | A stream of my current consciousness | | | Law school teaches its students to cling to these half-baked concepts, rules, and terms as if they were real life actual things. And inevitably, these new alive things take on lives of their own, divorcing themselves from the things they were supposed to represent. And you get lost in rules. You get asked by your criminal law professor whether a sailor who is trapped on a dingy in the middle of the ocean can legally kill a fellow sailor for food. And then you get asked whether the uninvolved sailor bystander could be charged as an accomplice. And when multiple law students chime in, restating, agreeing and arguing about what should be a non-law, you realize that most lawspeak no longer represents the things it was supposed to represent. You get a bout of morning sickness reading Stewart's opinion in Geduldig v. Aiello. | |
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< | And, it is at this point of realization2 that one becomes aware of the delicious irony that looms in the background of the general law school experience. You begin to see lawspeak as it really exists, abstract concepts laid on top of other abstracts concepts, piled so high that only a $150,000 bill can reach it. You begin to truly feel Marshall's dissenting words. That the true function of lawspeak is to conceal not explain, a facade for judges to hide behind. Most of all, you learn that you are in the ultimate Arnoldian instution and that lawspeak is a perverse type of fool's gold: an intellectual currency that should help express ideas but instead functions as a barrier, whose effectiveness is measured by its ability to make others misunderstand ideas.3 And you begin to wonder whether the primary reason law professors insist on teaching lawspeak is because they don't understand anything else. Or perhaps unconsciously these professors know that their tenure depends on lawspeak's existence and opaqueness. Or perhaps, because they are not lawyers themselves because the language and the culture are meant to keep things opaque. | >
> | And, it is at this point of realization2 that one becomes aware of the delicious irony that looms in the background. You may begin to see lawspeak as it really exists, abstract concepts laid on top of other abstracts concepts. You begin to truly feel Marshall's dissenting words. That the true function of lawspeak is to conceal and confuse, not explain. Lawspeak becomes a facade for its speakers to hide behind. Most of all, you learn that you are in the ultimate Arnoldian instution and that lawspeak is a perverse type of fool's gold: an intellectual currency that should help express ideas but instead functions as a barrier, whose effectiveness is measured by its ability to make others misunderstand ideas.3 And you begin to wonder whether the primary reason law professors insist on teaching lawspeak is because they don't understand anything else. Or perhaps unconsciously these professors know that their tenure depends on lawspeak's existence and opaqueness. | | | But a true lawyer is not merely a judge or a law professor. A lawyer is an advocate for a client. Being an advocate is not just about reading and interpreting law but also about how to communicate law. These skills are learned more often at a bar than law school. But a lawyer is not just an advocate, but a client's advocate. Which means law school should be teaching, among the other things it teaches, the skills that are necessary to acquire clients and serve them well. It is about addressing client needs that almost always stretch beyond reading and interpreting statutes and caselaw. Or it can be about finding a non-lawspeak way to sell the fools gold back to the vendor. Being a client's advocate, requires knowledge of a different language: the language of society, the very thing lawspeak is supposed to represent. | |
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< | And so we descend from Mount Justice holding these expensive tablets of knowledge. And as you reach the bottom, you leave behind your verbose language, silly and imprecise metaphors, opaqueness, and clever tricks that initially helped create an understanding--but are now simply in the way of any discernable meaning. You stop editing and talking in lawspeak (because you realize it is just crap). And then you speak in a language everyone will understand--direct and to the point. And then you say what should have said in far fewer words: | >
> | And so we descend from Mount Justice holding our $150k tablets of knowledge. And as you reach the bottom, you leave behind the verbose language, silly and imprecise metaphors, opaqueness, and clever tricks that initially helped create an understanding but soon degenerated into utter confusion and misunderstanding, sitting in the way of any discernable meaning. You stop editing and talking in lawspeak (because you realize it is just crap). And then you speak in a language everyone will understand--direct and to the point. And then you say what should have said in far fewer words: | | | It's all fucked up. | |
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< | Law school keeps being the idea of being lawyer a mystery and teaches its students to become tools and not people. I want to learn how to get clients and serve them. But in this regard, it looks like I'm on my own. | | |
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