From the Wool-sack
| Publication year | 1976 |
| Pages | 1311 |
| Citation | Vol. 5 No. 9 Pg. 1311 |
1976, September, Pg. 1311. From the Wool-Sack
With each new suit filed against bar associations by the Justice Department, lawyers are becoming aware of the changes thrust upon them by a consumer-oriented society led by Ralph Nader. These changes include demands that we advertise our fees, make probate simpler, make laws uniform, etc. The reason for these outlandish demands is that for the first time in the long and proud history of our profession those not made privy to its secrets by years of training in the art of reconditeness are beginning to understand what it is we do. Responsibility for the layman's ability to understand what we do, and hence to criticize it, springs from non-use of Latin in our day to day work.(fn1) As recently as twenty years ago, legal documents and statutes were replete with Latin phrases which none but the draftsman, if he, understood. Today the most complex of legal documents and laws contain not so much as one foreign word. The result is that unless the instrument is exceptionally obfuscatory most lay persons will understand its contents without a lawyer's assistance and, to demonstrate their understanding, may even make suggestions as to how the document could be improved.
As a former Latin student, I am offended by the belief of some young lawyers that Black's Law Dictionary, though bulky, is nothing more than a traveller's guide on how to say "Where is the bathroom?" or "Do you speak English?" when in Italy. As older lawyers know, it is a priceless work replete with thousands of Latin words and phrases whose abundant use by us would soon encourage the consumer crusader to abandon us and focus instead on some other profession. Although the writ de haerede rapto et abducto,(fn2) which probably inspired Dacy's How to Avoid Probate, would find scant use in 1976, there is no reason why hearings concerning escaped bank robbers should not be described as hearings de frangentibus prisonam,(fn3) why a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity should not be a finding of furiosus solo furore punitur,(fn4) ad infinitum. The liberal sprinkling of these phrases both in daily conversation and in all our writings would soon restore to our profession the respect of the lay public, which events of the last few years are only...
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