on Laws
No, not Lord Justice Laws who sits in the Court of Appeal, but the degree im doing.
Studying Laws has advantages - the most obvious being that it trains you to be a barrister or solicitor. It’s vocational and utilitarian (in the common English, not philosophical sense of the word.) some reckon that it trains you analytically, allowing you to strip off all the red herring and focus on the crunch issues.
I’m not sure if I agree, but I think that at the very least, it enables the Reader to extend the elasticity of his grammar to a point where his words and thought have become a larger receptacle and sharper dichtomiser, to allow words to have (that much) more margin of appreciation to reach their metaphysical barrier, to better fulfil their normative function before the boundaries of grammar is reached.
For example, legal language often permeates into many lawyers writing “extra-legally” if you will. A friend of mine recently spoke of presumptions and rebuttals.
As an American judge once stated (rather picturesquely) “presumptions are bats of the law, and flitter away when the true lights of fact arrive”
To adopt his example— (i hope you dont mind dude, tell me if you do)
Presumption: Hates loud flash[y] showboats who run their mouths cos they love the sound of their own voice.
Exception: presumption can be rebutted by evidence of a contrary intention.
This is in substance two statements, the first setting out a stereotype and the second providing for those who transcend the stereotype, but it sounds far more erudite and less controversial, if I might suggest.
And legal training trains one to identify flaws in the language which require elucidation. For example, I might suggest that “contrary intention” is rather ambiguous – it is usually the courts’ task to flesh out these provisions, just as the interpretation of what falls into this category falls into the responsibility of the critique.
Latinate, whilst considered obscure by most, often allows one to express his thoughts more concisely, such as
A fortiori
A priori
There are lots more, but I find these two particularly useful.
And with that ends my attempt to inject some integrity into the LLB course.
Studying Laws has advantages - the most obvious being that it trains you to be a barrister or solicitor. It’s vocational and utilitarian (in the common English, not philosophical sense of the word.) some reckon that it trains you analytically, allowing you to strip off all the red herring and focus on the crunch issues.
I’m not sure if I agree, but I think that at the very least, it enables the Reader to extend the elasticity of his grammar to a point where his words and thought have become a larger receptacle and sharper dichtomiser, to allow words to have (that much) more margin of appreciation to reach their metaphysical barrier, to better fulfil their normative function before the boundaries of grammar is reached.
For example, legal language often permeates into many lawyers writing “extra-legally” if you will. A friend of mine recently spoke of presumptions and rebuttals.
As an American judge once stated (rather picturesquely) “presumptions are bats of the law, and flitter away when the true lights of fact arrive”
To adopt his example— (i hope you dont mind dude, tell me if you do)
Presumption: Hates loud flash[y] showboats who run their mouths cos they love the sound of their own voice.
Exception: presumption can be rebutted by evidence of a contrary intention.
This is in substance two statements, the first setting out a stereotype and the second providing for those who transcend the stereotype, but it sounds far more erudite and less controversial, if I might suggest.
And legal training trains one to identify flaws in the language which require elucidation. For example, I might suggest that “contrary intention” is rather ambiguous – it is usually the courts’ task to flesh out these provisions, just as the interpretation of what falls into this category falls into the responsibility of the critique.
Latinate, whilst considered obscure by most, often allows one to express his thoughts more concisely, such as
A fortiori
A priori
There are lots more, but I find these two particularly useful.
And with that ends my attempt to inject some integrity into the LLB course.
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