Reviewed by Doris Marie Provine, Department of Political Science, Syracuse University Lawyers are word doctors, exhibiting a skill in the manipu- lation of ideas that makes lay people nervous. One of the first lessons a law student learns is that precision in the use of language is important, not just in the presentation of ideas, but in the details of style and format. Perhaps it does. The student also learns that there are plenty of opportunities to wing it in law, in conversations with clients, in informal negotiations with lawyers, and in the give and take of a trial or appellate argument. Language in these situations is conceived to be as invisible as it is in ordinary conversation, an unremark- able fluid through which ideas are conveyed.
Form always counts.
There are rules for all types of communication, even the most casual, and violations are met with disapproval or dismissal. Try opening a conversation with an inappropriate salutation, for example, and you are likely to get a reaction. The fact that some requirements are implicit, rather than explicit, renders them no less binding. Insensitivity to the implicit rules that structure communication, in fact, is more perilous because it signals that one is culturally obtuse. Nor is dealing with the formal side of law a simple and honorable matter of following explicit language rules, as law school teaches.