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| Marcel Strigberger |
Does the legal profession still need Latin? For how long? Ad infinitum?
My first exposure to Latin was on my first high school day in Montreal. I noticed a neighbour friend of mine, Thomas, pacing the street dejectedly. I asked him what’s up, and he told me his dad grounded him as, unlike me, he did not choose the elective Latin course. His father was old school, and he wanted Thomas to become a lawyer, insisting that lawyers must know this classical language.
Thomas asked that I assist and speak to his father. What did I know as a 14-year-old about either lawyers or strange languages? I opted for Latin as the other option was biology and I had no interest whatsoever in dissecting preserved frogs. As well, since I spoke French, a Romance language, I figured I would ace Latin and boost my grade average. Ergo.
I recall my first Latin class came out of a book titled Latin for Today. Lesson one depicted a map of ancient Europe. The lesson included a number of questions, such as, “Ubi est Britannia? Ubi est Gallia? Ubi est Hispania? And so forth.
I declined Thomas’s invitation to speak to his dad whose intentions were no doubt bona fide. However, I did not want to get caught in the middle of this argument though I agreed with Thomas that I did not think this type of information might be of too much use to the legal profession. I eventually had a busy litigation practice and not once did a client, or a judge, ever show me a map of ancient Europe and ask me in Latin to pinpoint Gaul.
So why do lawyers use Latin phrases? Is it useful? Is there any quid pro quo? I did some Googling for Latin legal expressions, and one site had 38 pages of them. Ita vero! (meaning “truly so” for those of you who opted to study biology instead).
Do lawyers find Latin really effective? Tell a client who is about to make some dubious move, “Hey Larry, beware,” and your admonition may fall on deaf ears. But say to him, “Hey Larry, caveat emptor,” and he’ll no doubt respond, “My lawyer knows his stuff; I’m passing.”
I found that younger lawyers tend to try to impress listeners with the use of Latin terms more often than our more seasoned colleagues. A newbie lawyer, Sheldon, who was assisting me on a case was frequently guilty of this conduct. Once during a meeting with a client in a heated matrimonial case, while I was trying to carefully unravel the issues for our client, Sergei, of Bulgarian origin, Sheldon jumped in and started a rant which sounded something like this:
“We shall ultimately obtain a divorce decree nisi. However since you have a marriage contract signed in a foreign locus, our courts should apply the principle of lex loci contractus and inter alia, we can launch a motion ex parte, de jure, to prevent your wife from dissipating assets. We don’t have to wait ex post facto.”
Sergei was not impressed or amused. He turned to me and exclaimed in equally flourishing language, “Who is this guy? What is he saying?” He then followed this comment up with a couple of words in Bulgarian. Though curious, to this day I never asked Sergei to translate the same.
I realized I should have held a firmer rein on Sheldon. Mea culpa. Had Sergei bolted, I could have ended up doing work for him pro bono.
Noted Ottawa lawyer Eugene Meehan, who is a guru on the subject of lawyers using persuasive language, says when writing legal briefs, lawyers are at their best when they don’t sound like lawyers. Throughout my practice years, I have taken his advice seriously, and I avoided the use of Latin. OK, I used it de minimis.
I will say that not only lawyers but also judges often get carried away trying to impress their audience with their Latin skills. I once witnessed a judge who seemed distracted, erroneously give a man 90 days in jail despite the prosecutor agreeing with defence counsel to a fine. The prosecutor immediately rose to make further submissions to honour the deal, but the judge smugly said, “I see. However, I cannot change my ruling. I’m functus officio.”
In addition to both lawyers trying to regain their composure, the man’s wife jumped up and pleaded that her husband was the breadwinner of the family of five children. The scene reminded me of Les Misérables, where Jean Valjean gets whacked for about 20 years consequent to stealing a loaf of bread.
The gentleman’s lawyer, who almost had cardiac arrest, tried explaining to his shocked client that functus officio was a nice Latin phrase, meaning the judge’s mandate is over, and he cannot reconsider, (though he probably could have). The lawyer’s subsequent translation for the wife of the phrase did not console her much. I, for one, did not expect her to say, “Of course, now I get it. Functus officio, that’s the law. Oh, well.”
However, I would say physicians are greater linguistic offenders. In addition to employing a stable of Latin words and phrases such as corpus, lingua and aorta, they are also into Greek lingo, freely flinging about words with prefixes such as derma, cardio and optha.
Although there may be some Greek words or phrases in the legal world, I cannot think of any offhand. It would not surprise me, however, if my aforementioned client Sergei thought Sheldon was speaking Greek.
I spoke to my son Gabriel, who is a high school math teacher, and he tells me that Latin is no longer offered in the system. Though I believe lawyers should use Latin phrases appropriately and with great discretion, I found that this language gave me a deeper understanding of the English language. I have no regrets having studied it for four years. It was definitely more fun than dissecting frogs.
I don’t know what happened to Thomas.
Marcel Strigberger retired from his Greater Toronto Area litigation practice and continues the more serious business of humorous author and speaker. His book, Boomers, Zoomers, and Other Oomers: A Boomer-biased Irreverent Perspective on Aging, is available on Amazon (e-book) and in paper version. Visit www.marcelshumour.com. Follow him @MarcelsHumour.
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