Legal Usage

Download or read book Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 1023 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to legal style and usage, with practical advice on how to write clear, jargon-free legal prose. Includes style tips as well as definitions.

Download or read book A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 990 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to legal style and usage, with practical advice on how to write clear, jargon-free legal prose. Includes style tips as well as definitions.

Download or read book Mellinkoff's Dictionary of American Legal Usage written by David Mellinkoff and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2009-06-24 with total page 811 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a dictionary of the language of the law as used in America today. Most of this dictionary is written in ordinary English. Most of the words that lawyers use in writing and talking about the law are the ordinary words that fill the dictionaries of the English language. They have a place in this dictionary when the law gives them a specialized sense; or to emphasize that there is none. Too often an apparent change in sense results not from the law but from bad grammar or redundancy; or from an unsorted host of possible meanings jumbled together and left to the vagaries of interpretation. At the other extreme, individual cases, each walled in by its own distinctive facts and law, may give an immaculately narrowed sense, but neither generalized definition nor standards for the gradation of sense that is the essence of clear usage. A small number of citations to cases of special relevance to word usage are included in this dictionary. The citation count does not measure the indebtedness of this dictionary to old and current sources of American legal usage. The definitions and examples of usage in this dictionary have roots in the law reports of thousands of litigated cases; in law writings formal and informal, profound and trivial; in the talk of lawyers and judges in court and out--the formal and the informal--colloquial and slangy, talk that is precise and talk that is mush; in a long line of dictionaries past and present--law dictionaries, and dictionaries of English and its usage. Drawing from all those sources, the definitions and examples are shaped by more than a half-century of personal immersion in the oral and written language of the law, as law student, practicing lawyer, professor, and writer. And something has been added. This dictionary is designed to sort out the words used in the law, and to identify the different senses in which each is used, and can be used. With cross-reference, it tells how words are related to each other and separated for each other, so that discrimination and choice of usage are possible. Words are grouped together as identical, similar, disparate, departing from or paralleling the usages of ordinary English. Where usage is not uniform, the dictionary comments on what is better, best, and worst. The dictionary concentrates on general legal usage for a profession practicing in the American common law tradition . . . The dictionary does not detail the multitude of other jurisdictional variations, but calls attention to the fact of variation. Although the distinction is often difficult to make, this is a word dictionary, not a short legal encyclopedia. Technicalities in general legal usage are included, but not the intricacies of learning in specialized fields of the law. There is no standard legal pronunciation. Pronunciation is included here when it is unusual, exotic, controversial, or needed to prevent confusion. Pronunciation is rendered in simplified phonetics. American law dictionaries go back to 1839. This one is new and different. --David Mellinkoff, from the Preface

Download or read book Modern Legal Drafting written by Peter Butt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-23 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the second edition of this highly regarded text, the authors show how and why traditional legal language has developed the peculiar characteristics that make legal documents inaccessible to the end users. Incorporating recent research and case law, the book provides a critical examination of case law and the rules of interpretation. Detailed case studies illustrate how obtuse or outdated words, phrases and concepts can be rewritten, reworked or removed altogether. Particularly useful is the step-by-step guide to drafting in the modern style, using examples from four types of common legal documents: leases, company constitutions, wills and conveyances. Readers will gain an appreciation of the historical influences on drafting practice and the use of legal terminology. They will learn about the current moves to reform legal language, and receive clear instruction on how to make their writing clearer and their legal documents more useful.

Download or read book Legal Usage written by Peter Butt and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Legal Terminology and Usage written by Ted H. Gordon and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-07-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If learning legal terminology were as simple as memorizing words, all you would need is a dictionary. But, merely memorizing definitions takes inordinate time, hard work, and in the end, still teaches you little about comprehending and retaining this new language. If you understand the nature of the legal terms and how they equate to ordinary legal situations, you will learn the terminology in a faster and more engaging way, and most importantly retain that knowledge far longer. Such learning requires the following strategies: charts comparing words whenever two terms have confusing similarities, organizing words under common legal concepts, and including interesting supplementary material (such as how attorneys evaluate an automobile case to determine how much it is worth, or who gets to keep the wedding ring if the marriage is called off). Cumulatively these learning strategies make legal terminology come alive. The purpose of learning legal terms is not for you to memorize the words for a test and forget them two days later. Rather, it is the ability to study the words in proper context so that you have a deep and sustainable understanding of the terms five years later. The goal of this book is to make learning more obtainable, and to create a platform for long-term recall for court reporters, paralegals, and anyone who wishes to understand legal terminology. As B. M. Dickey, Chair of Court Reporting for one of the Community Colleges said: "Infrequently you run across a truly superior textbook, that makes the teacher's job much easier, and is so naturally suited to the students and their needs, that you can't wait to tell others about your find. Legal Terminology and Theory for Court Reporters and Paralegals by Ted H. Gordon is just such a book. It is well written, comprehensive, logically organized, and extremely well received by students."

Download or read book Legal Meanings written by Janet Giltrow and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by Janet Giltrow and Dieter Stein, the Foundations in Language and Law series aims beyond the traditional surveys of scholarship in law and language. Monographs in the series will provide foundational materials - theoretical, methodological, critical, practical - to advance study of important topics in the field. And even as each volume engages conceptually with current scholarship in the area, it presents original research which breaks new ground and indicates future directions for scholarship in law and language. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Natalie Fecher.