News
Law Practice
Mar. 1, 2002
Legal Faux Pas Provide Mist for the Grill
Dicta Column - By Donald E. Griffith - When lawyers get in a hurry, their legal sometimes assistants make typing mistakes. This is because most lawyers know only enough about typing to know how to make the "$" symbol appear on their legal bills. So they stand over their underpaid, stressed-out assistants, red pen in hand, and make illegible changes to a hard copy of the document, which the assistant must translate into something seemingly coherent.
Dicta Column
By Donald E. Griffith
When lawyers get in a hurry, their legal sometimes assistants make typing mistakes. This is because most lawyers know only enough about typing to know how to make the "$" symbol appear on their legal bills. So they stand over their underpaid, stressed-out assistants, red pen in hand, and make illegible changes to a hard copy of the document, which the assistant must translate into something seemingly coherent. The result: an occasional word or phrase is missing a letter, or has an extra letter, or has had one letter replaced with another.
One way to look at this is that it provides lawyers with a slew of new legal words and phrases you can add to your vocabulary and impress your colleagues. Try one or two in a brief or complaint just to throw your opponent off. They'll over-think the issue and either wonder whether you know something they don't, which will send a junior lawyer off on a wild goose chase to the library for hours, or try to determine whether you intentionally misspelled the word as a kind of underhanded insult. Either way, it should provide hours of consternation.
At times, these typos even seem to make sense, and one can see the new definition for these new words in the latest edition of Black's Law Dictionary:
• Abscone - Pastry theft.
• Armed rubbery - Sticking someone up with an elastic band on your finger and thumb.
• Attorney wok product - Materials prepared by lawyers in anticipation of Asian litigation.
• Cannon of ethics - Any local ordnance.
• Defaulty judgment - A ruling you should win on appeal.
• Domicide - House murder.
• Double jeoparty - Being twice accused of crashing the same event.
• Halographic will - Testamentary document with an aura about it.
• Herass - What her boss pinched just before she filed a lawsuit.
• Hornybook - Treatise on the law of workplace harassment.
• In-horse counsel - Lawyers for Mr. Ed.
• Joustice - Medieval form of trial by combat.
• Mealpractice - Legal services so inadequate you can't afford to eat after the huge verdict against you.
• Oats of office - Swearing-in ceremony after Mr. Ed gets elected.
• Orbiter dicta - Judicial asides so outlandish they're out of this world.
• Ordnance - See cannon of ethics.
• Rebutteable - Argument from the top of a high mesa.
• Reciperocity - Mutual exchange of ingredients.
• Recluse - What you become after removing yourself from a case.
• Regress - An exit that leads to past lives.
• Shiplash - Maritime law term for a neck injury caused by a cruise liner smashing into your dinghy.
• Treasonable doubt - One who is unsure of his or her patriotism.
• Ural Contract - Verbal agreement to go climb a mountain.
• Warranty dead - Stating that the title you transfer is good and ending with "Cross my heart and hope to die."
• Wonton disregard - Negligently serving hot noodle soup.
• Wreckless driving - Requirement for a discount on one's auto insurance.
• Writ of habeas porpus - Latin phrase meaning "bring forth the dolphin."
• Wrongful dearth - An inadequate supply of bad acts.
Donald E. Griffith is a Los Angeles lawyer and writer.
By Donald E. Griffith
When lawyers get in a hurry, their legal sometimes assistants make typing mistakes. This is because most lawyers know only enough about typing to know how to make the "$" symbol appear on their legal bills. So they stand over their underpaid, stressed-out assistants, red pen in hand, and make illegible changes to a hard copy of the document, which the assistant must translate into something seemingly coherent. The result: an occasional word or phrase is missing a letter, or has an extra letter, or has had one letter replaced with another.
One way to look at this is that it provides lawyers with a slew of new legal words and phrases you can add to your vocabulary and impress your colleagues. Try one or two in a brief or complaint just to throw your opponent off. They'll over-think the issue and either wonder whether you know something they don't, which will send a junior lawyer off on a wild goose chase to the library for hours, or try to determine whether you intentionally misspelled the word as a kind of underhanded insult. Either way, it should provide hours of consternation.
At times, these typos even seem to make sense, and one can see the new definition for these new words in the latest edition of Black's Law Dictionary:
• Abscone - Pastry theft.
• Armed rubbery - Sticking someone up with an elastic band on your finger and thumb.
• Attorney wok product - Materials prepared by lawyers in anticipation of Asian litigation.
• Cannon of ethics - Any local ordnance.
• Defaulty judgment - A ruling you should win on appeal.
• Domicide - House murder.
• Double jeoparty - Being twice accused of crashing the same event.
• Halographic will - Testamentary document with an aura about it.
• Herass - What her boss pinched just before she filed a lawsuit.
• Hornybook - Treatise on the law of workplace harassment.
• In-horse counsel - Lawyers for Mr. Ed.
• Joustice - Medieval form of trial by combat.
• Mealpractice - Legal services so inadequate you can't afford to eat after the huge verdict against you.
• Oats of office - Swearing-in ceremony after Mr. Ed gets elected.
• Orbiter dicta - Judicial asides so outlandish they're out of this world.
• Ordnance - See cannon of ethics.
• Rebutteable - Argument from the top of a high mesa.
• Reciperocity - Mutual exchange of ingredients.
• Recluse - What you become after removing yourself from a case.
• Regress - An exit that leads to past lives.
• Shiplash - Maritime law term for a neck injury caused by a cruise liner smashing into your dinghy.
• Treasonable doubt - One who is unsure of his or her patriotism.
• Ural Contract - Verbal agreement to go climb a mountain.
• Warranty dead - Stating that the title you transfer is good and ending with "Cross my heart and hope to die."
• Wonton disregard - Negligently serving hot noodle soup.
• Wreckless driving - Requirement for a discount on one's auto insurance.
• Writ of habeas porpus - Latin phrase meaning "bring forth the dolphin."
• Wrongful dearth - An inadequate supply of bad acts.
Donald E. Griffith is a Los Angeles lawyer and writer.
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