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> Using dead language for your jargon feels like it specifically keeps laypeople of the loop. This is not really a fair assessment. Law and contracts aren’t al

> Using dead language for your jargon feels like it specifically keeps laypeople of the loop. This is not really a fair assessment. Law and contracts aren’t all rewritten every few years — old and settled law must be read and understood in the style it was written in, as must precedents and contracts. At one time, the largest settled body of law was the Roman law and so a lot of Latin got dragged forward into the English legal system (and from there into the American, Hong Kong, Canadian, &c.). The situation is like that in medicine, biology and many other sciences, where the long history of Latin as a language of scholarship is still felt in the choice of technical terms.

lightedman 9y ago
"This is not really a fair assessment" Yes it is. Most people making an appeal wouldn't know what a prima facie case is. It is in fact how most self-done appeals fail in the first place. Most people don't know when they file for themselves to file pro se - a big failing for initial cases. Little technical crap like that which relies upon a dead language that only us geeks bothered taking in high school as their elective foreign language. WE get the advantage, the common person does not. Then to boot, we pretty much eliminated civics, so most people don't know how to file a lawsuit or defend themselves, let alone know the Latin terms to utilize in the first place! And the NEW laws are still written in the OLD American English. No bueno.
- Sacho 9y ago
  Knowing what the words mean in Latin doesn't help you in any legal sense. You won't be able to present "at first sight evidence"(?!) in any useful manner without knowing the legal requirements and procedures. What you need to know is the law, and you're right, having that knowledge would help you when presenting a case....but that's a wholly different argument from knowing Latin.
  - lightedman 9y ago
    You failed your translation - On The Face Of The Statement is the definition. Source: High school Latin.

lightedman 9y ago

"This is not really a fair assessment" Yes it is. Most people making an appeal wouldn't know what a prima facie case is. It is in fact how most self-done appeals fail in the first place. Most people don't know when they file for themselves to file pro se - a big failing for initial cases. Little technical crap like that which relies upon a dead language that only us geeks bothered taking in high school as their elective foreign language. WE get the advantage, the common person does not. Then to boot, we pretty much eliminated civics, so most people don't know how to file a lawsuit or defend themselves, let alone know the Latin terms to utilize in the first place! And the NEW laws are still written in the OLD American English. No bueno.

Sacho 9y ago
Knowing what the words mean in Latin doesn't help you in any legal sense. You won't be able to present "at first sight evidence"(?!) in any useful manner without knowing the legal requirements and procedures. What you need to know is the law, and you're right, having that knowledge would help you when presenting a case....but that's a wholly different argument from knowing Latin.
- lightedman 9y ago
  You failed your translation - On The Face Of The Statement is the definition. Source: High school Latin.