Break free from legalese to win cases and clients

Sometimes lawyers get caught up in their own language of legalese. When done in the courtroom or at other times with clients, attorneys risk the opportunity to fully connect with those they serve. YourABA recently spoke with William Drennan, author of Lay Words for Lawyers: Analogies and Key Words to Advance Your Case and Communicate with Clients and Advocacy Words: A Thesaurus, to learn some tips on how to use laymen's language to better communicate with clients.

Why should a lawyer be familiar with certain “lay words,” as you call them—sports terminology, literary references?

Every discipline has words particular to it, be it medicine, accounting, sociology, and a host of other academic disciplines—including law. Attorneys communicate with each other using this language of the profession. They in turn communicate with jurists, and jurists with them and with each other, using the same terms.

Enter the layman—the non-lawyer without whose presence there are no cases, without whom the practice of the profession is moot. The layman has his own language—perhaps precise, perhaps not. Yet to pursue a case—to prosecute it, defend it, win it—the attorney must understand this language and be able to use it to advance his case.

The lawyer’s verbal ammunition should incorporate laymen's language—including literary, sports and other references appropriate to the listener.  The counsel’s use of analogies and key words that elicit strong mental—and particularly strong emotional—images or memories in the hearer, to stimulate a flood of associations, can especially help advance his case.

Many words that advocacy journalists employ paint effective word pictures.  For example, in attacking the credibility of opposing counsel’s witness, a litigator might use such devastatingly critical terms as cowardly for prudent; disdainful or haughty for proud; indifferent or lazy for easygoing; brash or vicious for assertive; coerce, intimidate, or con for persuade; plot for plan; irresponsible for uninhibited; hasty for swift; and dream up for formulate.

My book Advocacy Words: A Thesaurus can help with word selection. The terms are arranged alphabetically in two groups: favorable-critical (Part One) and critical-favorable (Part Two). You need only look in one column and see the corresponding advocacy word or words in the opposite column—there are no cross-references.

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How, more specifically, can a lawyer use such terms, both inside and outside of a courtroom?

Common laymen’s language is useful in all communications with non-attorneys. However, the counsel must remember to tailor his analogies and references to his audience. What may be appropriate for a Boomer may not be appropriate for someone younger. For example, a song released in the late sixties, even though this is during the Generation X birth years, more appropriately applies to the Boomers.

Mature counsel need to know vocabularies used by, for example, Generation X or Generation Y clients. Young attorneys could profit by knowing, for example, World War II analogies when addressing mature jurors.

Many terms are pangenerational, covering all the generations and known equally, or close to equally, by all. Terms from current or recent news, as well as words or phrases from classic films, among other expressions, fall into this category.

What should a lawyer be aware of with respect to opposing counsel using such terms?

Counter them with your own. Be imaginative. Analogies, in Lay Words for Lawyers, and specific words, in Advocacy Words, are your weapons. Paint pictures in your listeners’ minds. Arouse their feelings to your cause.

Younger lawyers and members of a jury tend to be more familiar with computer jargon—what are some generational considerations in the use of lay words?

As I mentioned earlier, speak to your specific audience. Analogies that appeal to their feelings are your shortcuts to enlisting those feelings on your behalf. The wistful “September Song” could arouse poignant emotions in older jurors in, for example, a nursing home case. Analogizing a Beatles song or Graceland can unleash powerful positive emotions in Boomers. The title from a Bon Jovi song can surface memories in Generation X-ers. When attacking opposing counsel’s case, analogies that stir negative emotions, such as September 11 and December 7, Hitler, cancer and Hurricane Katrina, can be devastating. You want to get memories flooding, adrenaline pumping, hearts pounding—all in support of your case.

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One of the categories in your book is “Computers.” In addition to reading your book, how can an attorney keep on top of current and changing lingo?

In terms of computer language, the way the rest of us do —by keeping current in this rapidly evolving field. Otherwise, be eclectic in your informational arsenal. When there is a generational gap, make a list of terms others frequently employ. For older counsel, find out what people, places and things are important to earlier generations. For young attorneys, learn from the past. The classic phrase “Round up the usual suspects” —from the 1942 film Casablanca and cited in Lay Words for Lawyers—might be effectively used by a lawyer born decades after the film was made.

Given that lawyers are often used to their own lawyer-speak—though you’ve already given us reasons why it’s a smart thing to do—do you have tips on how to get out of that mind-set?

Keep in mind that you are speaking to an audience not versed in the law. Legalese is fine when addressing the judge or other lawyers; but try that with a witness, a juror, or a client, and you may as well be speaking an alien language from another planet—you won’t communicate. All attorneys have—or should have—a life outside their cases and the courtroom. Tap into that life—learn from it, use it—in your professional life as a lawyer.

Mr. Drennan may be reached at drenlit@earthlink.net.

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