Job Discussion Forums

[Kofola]

Hi,

Wondered if any of you had come across good materials for teaching legal English?

I'm teaching a lawyer who wants to be able to advise and represent clients in English. The problem is that the law is different in each country and it can be quite hard to pin down the way some of the vocabulary is used. Just to give an example: yesterday, we spent a good 20 mins talking at cross purposes in trying to establish what 'Will the case go to trial?' meant. Until we finally realised that our misunderstanding was based on the fact that in Slovakia once the claim has been filed the case will go to trial; there is no pretrial hearing. On the plus side, it gave us both a much clearer idea of just how clear you have to be when advising people who come from countries with different systems. On the downside I realised that the published materials I have are even more useless than I had previously thought - very very limited context and poor definitions.

What I'm really after is something along the lines of videos of civil court cases so that she can associate the vocabulary with the way in which it is used. These don't have to be aimed at learners, but probably shouldn't be dramas - as they don't focus on the story rather than the legal process.

Bit of a long shot I know...

Thanks.

[Kiwi303]

I have just the thing here in my hand, from ducking out into the hallways and rifling through my old University texts in the hall bookcase.

"Understanding Commercial Law" Third edition...



Your problem is it is VERY country specific and system specific, concentrating on NZ contract and business law.



On the other hand, all you need to do is visit any law firm in your city and ask for old reference and case books that are being discarded as they relate to laws that have since been repealed or modified.

Or find a university with a Legal school and find a student looking to flog off his first year textbooks cheap to subsidise his third year textbooks. You may have trouble finding a Slovakian legal textbook in English, but you should find SOME legal tome in English with the right legal language.

Find something that covers example cases, has reprints of judges summaries, histories, and generally is an educational tome. Dig through it and use extracts from the case of Joe Bloggski vs the Kremlin, or or Smith vs Uncle Sam and with your student, do a post mortem on the language used, the reasoning behind the presentation of the cases...

[sharter]

English for Law-Alison Riley

[Glenski]

Publishers are coming out more and more with books on ESP (English for Specific Purposes). There are some out there for teaching English for law. Search for them, starting with Oxford.

As for what you have described, that is teaching the law, not English. It seems that the onus is on you, not the student, to understand any differences in legal proceedings or vocabulary. To do this, it can be helpful to the student to explain things to you using English. So you don't waste 20 minutes on just one point, it may be necessary to structure your lessons differently. Maybe have the student create his own database for you, using something as simple as Word or Excel or something as complex and more elegant as a wiki or Moodle database.

For things like videos, it might be just as instructional to show short clips from TV programs to illustrate points. Boston Legal, CSI, Perry Mason, Judd for the Defense, Matlock, Dragnet, etc. There are some good scenes from movies, too, but they may be harder for you to get.

[Kofola]

Thanks everyone for your help.

The problem with the ESP materials I have come across so far (apart from the fact that they are appalling in pedagogical terms) is that they all assume that (a) the student needs English for UK and US law and (b) that the student is familiar with these systems. When in actual fact many learners need English to describe their own systems and know only the very basic differences between the different legal systems ie not enough for vocab transfer.

Kiwi303 - thanks for your tips on this - very useful.

@Sharter - I'm not familar with the Riley. Googled but couldn't find much info. Do you happen to know what kind of law it deals with and if it has a lot of context?

@Klenski

[Zero]

Even in English, who knows all the legal terms? Especially considering that many of them are in Latin, and also, terms will vary depending on what area is under discussion, e.g., criminal law versus contract law. But the student doesn't need a massive understanding of English legal terms, as in, "Oh, voir dire is a bit different around these parts than what you may be used to, counsel doesn't get the same peremptory challenges ..."

The student needs ways to translate the local legal system to clients. Teach her how to convert specific legal terms from the local language and system into everyday English, rather than technical legal English. Let her tell you the things she would need to say, and give her straightforward ways to say them. The burden of looking up legal terms in a bilingual dictionary is on her. She may come up with some specific English legal terms, like voir dire, but for an average English speaker, even those will have to be explained.

[JordanX]

Why don't you also ask a few lawyers? Or a law blog? I kinda wonder what attorneys in the trenches -- i.e., attorneys who have had to learn a second language for their jobs -- have to say about this.

EDIT: From what my friends who are attorneys in the UK and France have told me, the problem is both legal AND conceptual.