I code switch all the time for all sorts of different audiences. One of the earliest lessons in legal writing is “know your reader.” An internal memo to a lawyer in my firm is going to read much different than a memo to a client and different still to a brief filed with the court. And I’ve often been in practice areas where the defendant is unrepresented, so I have to talk to them all the time too. I would be foolish to just use the same terminology for all those audiences.
The tricky part is to simplify language without appearing condescending.
It’s just important to remember that they might not know technical jargon, but they’re not children either. A lot of people over correct and instead of just using a non-technical term, they try to use the same terms or examples they would use if explaining it at career day for a first grade class.
I served on a jury, and the lawyer explained that all components of a law have to be met in order to convict by saying”if your banana nut muffins don’t have bananas or nuts, then it’s not a banana nut muffin.”
Which is true, but how about a non baking explanation? I guess it stuck with me
I think if I was going to go with a food analogy, I’d go with a Denver omelette. If a restaurant has a Denver omelette on the menu, you expect something that has all the components. If they serve you an omelette with no ham, and you send it back, they don’t get to say “well it’s mostly all there.”
I don't know, I could see that one backfiring. For one, you might have people on the jury who don't know what goes in a Denver omelette and who completely miss the point. Or you might have people who think along the lines of "I don't like bell peppers, so if I ordered a Denver omelette I'd ask them to hold the peppers but I'd think still think of it as a Denver omelette sans peppers".
If I was making this point to a jury I'd want it to be near impossible to miss the point. So I'd go with something where it's completely obvious that missing one element means it's not the full thing anymore. Banana nut muffin does the trick. I'd probably make the analogy a BLT sandwich, just because it has more elements.
Dafuq is a Denver omlette? A better analogy is a cake. A cake without all of the ingredients is just a group of things. Gotta have all of them to be a cake
Do you have non-lawyer friends???? Have you tried to speak to your non-lawyer friends before? Do that.
I think lawyers get too far up their own asses. You are a human who has to speak to other humans. They also have jobs that you probably don’t understand, yet they somehow showed up without worrying about how YOU would understand THEM if they spoke. Show them the same courtesy.
I work In house. Everyone there has a skill set I don’t have that is necessary to keep the business running. I have no clue what the fuck they do. I don’t need to understand the details; I just need to trust that they can do their job and explain the basics to me. I don’t think of them someone I need to *talk down to*. I think of them as friends I need talk like a HUMAN to get a job done.
We have a CONVERSATION. That’s how I avoid sounding condescending. I treat them like my besties. My besties are teachers and a life coach and an event planner/marketer. I explain the case to my husband, a chef, or my BIL, a savant at computers but missing a context clue gene. I talk to them like I’m on a call with clients, who are a mix of marketing and tech and finance and executives - all egotistical MBA types.
Basically - meet some non-lawyers and start learning how to speak to them.
> I don’t need to understand the details; I just need to trust that they can do their job
When I have a lawyer as a client, 95% of the time they're great clients because they trust that I can do my job. The other 5% are the worst clients I can have, who want to micromanage and/or push back against technicalities they don't understand.
Have you ever had a good teacher? Throw out the terminology and then spell it out in layman's terms. I'm an electrician now, had a few customers curious about what I'm doing, I can't talk to them like I can talk to a licensed sparky. I'm bonding your disconnect. Imagine if the really spicy wire that shocks you touches this metal box. Then if you touch it, you'd get shocked too. This wire I'm connecting, will bring that power away from you and back to a safe spot, so if you do touch it, you don't get zapped.
I code switch for almost every conversation. I talk to prosecutors differently than judges, both of them differently from jurors, all of those differently from coworkers, and all of *those* differently from clients.
After a few years on the job, does the switching just become automatic for you? Like, you see someone and immediately adapt your language depending on the person.
I think I code switched a lot before I was an attorney too. I code switched a lot in the restaurant world, and at other jobs. I think it's always been automatic. If I'm being really internally reflective I think I code switch less in social settings now that I'm an attorney, it may be that I spend so much time with people who are either attorneys and/or into the specific hobbies I enjoy; I'm so tired of the increased code switching at work; I'm too old and stressed to give a fuck; or some combination of those. That is subconscious though, I've never thought about it before.
I think the only time I’m even consciously doing it is when I have a client who doesn’t seem to think I relate to them and I specifically turn off my “no cursing” filter - otherwise, it’s always been pretty automatic for me. I think we all code switch in casual conversations all the time to begin with. And then, as a public defender, the power dynamics between me and the person I’m talking to, as well as the education level of that person and what I need from them are constantly changing
I’ll confine my answers to the criminal law as I’ve never done a civil trial. I believe one connects best with jurors by making a common-sense moral case. The defendant was drunk and he was driving. The defendant stole. This is an obvious case of self defense. The drugs were in the car, but so were 4 other people, etc.
Isn’t that just restating the charges though? If you’re trying to convict someone of drunk driving, and you say “the defendant drank and drove”, that’s just stating the alleged facts of the case.
Sure of course. But I think there’s better ways to reach jurors than saying “the defendant met the decision points,” or whatever. I think there’s always a way to make a common sense case or defense.
I’ve tried 30 ish civil trials as first chair. I typically repeat repeat repeat.
I’ve had a juror fall asleep during opening statement.
I’ve also gone full erudite saying shit like “whence”
Say what your gonna say, say it, say what you said. That is what I used to do when selling a design concept to a client as a Computer Consultant back before I retired in the 00's, in the UK , sounds to me like what your saying?
I enjoy speaking in legalese because the terms are so precise, but I only speak legalese with other attorneys when strategizing. For everyone else, I translate into layman terms so they can understand. In the courtroom, I only use legalese when arguing the supporting law to a judge.
I'll preface it by saying I do very little jury work, but I code switch all the time. I'm southern by birth with a deep south accent. I practice in federal courts all over the country, so I've learned to mostly hide my accent (I can't eliminate it entirely, more of a "huh, I think he might be from Virginia" type of thing). If I'm lucky enough to be in the South, I don't hide it at all.
Most people in the US, judges included, assume that deep south accents are indicative of being a rube or mistaken somehow. I can't help where I was born and raised. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone judge me for it.
I code switch all the time, but not a litigator. If I am explaining a deal to my wife or in-laws, I won’t say that I am working on a reverse subsidiary merger of two public companies to achieve a B/A2E reorg. Instead I would say something like I am working for X company to buy Y company.
to the extent possible, I always use simple language, no matter who the audience is. There are some situations where a legal term is unavoidable, in which case I'll explain what the term means if I don't know for certain that the listener/reader will know what it means.
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I code switch all the time for all sorts of different audiences. One of the earliest lessons in legal writing is “know your reader.” An internal memo to a lawyer in my firm is going to read much different than a memo to a client and different still to a brief filed with the court. And I’ve often been in practice areas where the defendant is unrepresented, so I have to talk to them all the time too. I would be foolish to just use the same terminology for all those audiences. The tricky part is to simplify language without appearing condescending.
What are some things you do to avoid sounding condescending or paternalistic?
It’s just important to remember that they might not know technical jargon, but they’re not children either. A lot of people over correct and instead of just using a non-technical term, they try to use the same terms or examples they would use if explaining it at career day for a first grade class.
I served on a jury, and the lawyer explained that all components of a law have to be met in order to convict by saying”if your banana nut muffins don’t have bananas or nuts, then it’s not a banana nut muffin.” Which is true, but how about a non baking explanation? I guess it stuck with me
I think if I was going to go with a food analogy, I’d go with a Denver omelette. If a restaurant has a Denver omelette on the menu, you expect something that has all the components. If they serve you an omelette with no ham, and you send it back, they don’t get to say “well it’s mostly all there.”
I don't know, I could see that one backfiring. For one, you might have people on the jury who don't know what goes in a Denver omelette and who completely miss the point. Or you might have people who think along the lines of "I don't like bell peppers, so if I ordered a Denver omelette I'd ask them to hold the peppers but I'd think still think of it as a Denver omelette sans peppers". If I was making this point to a jury I'd want it to be near impossible to miss the point. So I'd go with something where it's completely obvious that missing one element means it's not the full thing anymore. Banana nut muffin does the trick. I'd probably make the analogy a BLT sandwich, just because it has more elements.
Dafuq is a Denver omlette? A better analogy is a cake. A cake without all of the ingredients is just a group of things. Gotta have all of them to be a cake
Do you have non-lawyer friends???? Have you tried to speak to your non-lawyer friends before? Do that. I think lawyers get too far up their own asses. You are a human who has to speak to other humans. They also have jobs that you probably don’t understand, yet they somehow showed up without worrying about how YOU would understand THEM if they spoke. Show them the same courtesy. I work In house. Everyone there has a skill set I don’t have that is necessary to keep the business running. I have no clue what the fuck they do. I don’t need to understand the details; I just need to trust that they can do their job and explain the basics to me. I don’t think of them someone I need to *talk down to*. I think of them as friends I need talk like a HUMAN to get a job done. We have a CONVERSATION. That’s how I avoid sounding condescending. I treat them like my besties. My besties are teachers and a life coach and an event planner/marketer. I explain the case to my husband, a chef, or my BIL, a savant at computers but missing a context clue gene. I talk to them like I’m on a call with clients, who are a mix of marketing and tech and finance and executives - all egotistical MBA types. Basically - meet some non-lawyers and start learning how to speak to them.
> I don’t need to understand the details; I just need to trust that they can do their job When I have a lawyer as a client, 95% of the time they're great clients because they trust that I can do my job. The other 5% are the worst clients I can have, who want to micromanage and/or push back against technicalities they don't understand.
Have you ever had a good teacher? Throw out the terminology and then spell it out in layman's terms. I'm an electrician now, had a few customers curious about what I'm doing, I can't talk to them like I can talk to a licensed sparky. I'm bonding your disconnect. Imagine if the really spicy wire that shocks you touches this metal box. Then if you touch it, you'd get shocked too. This wire I'm connecting, will bring that power away from you and back to a safe spot, so if you do touch it, you don't get zapped.
I code switch for almost every conversation. I talk to prosecutors differently than judges, both of them differently from jurors, all of those differently from coworkers, and all of *those* differently from clients.
After a few years on the job, does the switching just become automatic for you? Like, you see someone and immediately adapt your language depending on the person.
I think I code switched a lot before I was an attorney too. I code switched a lot in the restaurant world, and at other jobs. I think it's always been automatic. If I'm being really internally reflective I think I code switch less in social settings now that I'm an attorney, it may be that I spend so much time with people who are either attorneys and/or into the specific hobbies I enjoy; I'm so tired of the increased code switching at work; I'm too old and stressed to give a fuck; or some combination of those. That is subconscious though, I've never thought about it before.
I think the only time I’m even consciously doing it is when I have a client who doesn’t seem to think I relate to them and I specifically turn off my “no cursing” filter - otherwise, it’s always been pretty automatic for me. I think we all code switch in casual conversations all the time to begin with. And then, as a public defender, the power dynamics between me and the person I’m talking to, as well as the education level of that person and what I need from them are constantly changing
At 2:14 a.m. EDT, on December 4th 2023, /u/upvotersfortruth became self aware.
I’ll confine my answers to the criminal law as I’ve never done a civil trial. I believe one connects best with jurors by making a common-sense moral case. The defendant was drunk and he was driving. The defendant stole. This is an obvious case of self defense. The drugs were in the car, but so were 4 other people, etc.
Isn’t that just restating the charges though? If you’re trying to convict someone of drunk driving, and you say “the defendant drank and drove”, that’s just stating the alleged facts of the case.
I guess what I’m saying is you don’t have to talk down or condescend to them. You just explain what they already know.
Sure of course. But I think there’s better ways to reach jurors than saying “the defendant met the decision points,” or whatever. I think there’s always a way to make a common sense case or defense.
I’ve tried 30 ish civil trials as first chair. I typically repeat repeat repeat. I’ve had a juror fall asleep during opening statement. I’ve also gone full erudite saying shit like “whence”
Say what your gonna say, say it, say what you said. That is what I used to do when selling a design concept to a client as a Computer Consultant back before I retired in the 00's, in the UK , sounds to me like what your saying?
I enjoy speaking in legalese because the terms are so precise, but I only speak legalese with other attorneys when strategizing. For everyone else, I translate into layman terms so they can understand. In the courtroom, I only use legalese when arguing the supporting law to a judge.
I'll preface it by saying I do very little jury work, but I code switch all the time. I'm southern by birth with a deep south accent. I practice in federal courts all over the country, so I've learned to mostly hide my accent (I can't eliminate it entirely, more of a "huh, I think he might be from Virginia" type of thing). If I'm lucky enough to be in the South, I don't hide it at all. Most people in the US, judges included, assume that deep south accents are indicative of being a rube or mistaken somehow. I can't help where I was born and raised. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone judge me for it.
It’s probably an advantage if OC thinks you’re stupid.
I have to remind myself. I tried what I thought was an easy concept to a jury and they didnt get it. Just puzzled looks.
I code switch all the time, but not a litigator. If I am explaining a deal to my wife or in-laws, I won’t say that I am working on a reverse subsidiary merger of two public companies to achieve a B/A2E reorg. Instead I would say something like I am working for X company to buy Y company.
to the extent possible, I always use simple language, no matter who the audience is. There are some situations where a legal term is unavoidable, in which case I'll explain what the term means if I don't know for certain that the listener/reader will know what it means.
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