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Lawyerspeak
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Posted on Apr 30 2009
According to the American Bar Association, the U.S. has about 1.14 million lawyers in our population of about 306 million people. That’s about one lawyer for about every 270 people. Wow! Aren’t we lucky! Our friends across the sea in the Philippines only have one lawyer for every 1,770 people, and the poor Japanese are stuck with just one lawyer for every 5,500 people, but its even worse in South Korea where they have only one lawyer for about 7,000 people. Let us count our blessings.
It is because we have such a glut of attorneys that they had to developed an entire new language called lawyerspeak. With lawyerspeak, attorneys can sound like they are being forthright through blustering, while disguising the truth. Let me cite a recent example.
Our dear proud friends in Washington, Howard P. and Deanne Willens, who have worked for more than 30 years with and for the Commonwealth, say that they are pleased to provide our services without any charge for legal fees. To that end they are call themselves volunteers. Wow! They are volunteers who accept no legal fees but still cost the Commonwealth taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars through the years as special legal counsel and special counsel! That is absolutely amazing. It does raise the question, however, since he is a lawyer and the law is his forte, could he be providing counsel in something else, like waste management, customs collections, tax incentives and liabilities that don’t require a legal background? Or does it all call upon his legalese in providing counsel?
This is another reason why we can be justifiably proud of having a surplus of lawyers in America. This abundance of Councilors of the Law allows some to become so adept at lawyerspeak that they can pick our pocket while shaking our hand. This is not to say that all lawyers are bad. After all, we did have a phenomenal honest member of the bar, Honest Abe, but that was long ago and far away. Now, through lawyerspeak, we have to reexamine the meaning of volunteerism because of the new spin that’s been put upon it. It apparently doesn’t mean without pay, compensation, remuneration, costs, etc. Ah, well. Life goes on.
[B]Sean O. Smith[/B] [I]via e-mail[/I]
