Readings

I've laughed a total of five times so far today doing my Contracts and Torts readings. The text written by authors of the casebooks is (pleasantly) surprisingly readable. Laughing is a good sign (or a bad sign, some would argue ha), and here's an excerpt from "How to Read a Legal Opinion" by Orin Kerr about why our legal system today uses so much confusing terminology (that is, why isn't our legal vocab in plain English?? --> A question I've asked many times in frustration):

"In 1066, William the Conqueror came across the English Channel from what is now France and conquered the land that is today called England. The conquering Normans spoke French and the defeated Saxons spoke Old English. The Normans took over the court system, and their language became the language of the law. For several centuries after the French-speaking Normans took over England, lawyers and judges in English courts spoke in French. When English courts eventually returned to using English, they continued to use many French words. Why should you care about this ancient history? The American colonists considered themselves Englishmen, so they used the English legal system and adopted its language. This means that American legal opinions today are littered with weird French terms. Examples include plaintiff, defendant, tort, contract, crime, judge, attorney, counsel, court, verdict, party, appeal, evidence, and jury. These words are the everyday language of the American legal system. And they’re all from the French, brought to you by William the Conqueror in 1066."

Loll. I'm glad I got to read this; it helped clear up my frustration.

That Latin I took all those years ago (and for so many years) is now coming in very useful too. Not that I remember very much, but certain Latin legal phrases make sense to me because I have a vague memory of what the conjugations or definitions of those Latin words were. Oh the pain of those years....

Yeahh back to reading.