You Were Saying . .

Every few years, certain phrases take hold in conversation and the media.  Phrases that, typically, are inaccurate, ungrammatical, redundant, nonsensical — or all of the above.   Some recent examples: 1. “The reason why…”   Saying both “the reason” and “why” is redundant: “The reason I went to bed is because I was tired,” has the same...

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A Very Brief History of Litigation

Litigation is as old as civilized history: evidence of trials exists in the hieroglyphic stone tablets of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the scrolls of Rome and Greece, and even the ideographs of the Chinese dynasties. For instance, Pliny the Youngest (Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus Junior) wrote:  “If a citizen’s concubine falleth beneath the wheels of a neighbor’s horse cart, the Praetor...

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What Lawyers Do

Or, Big Words Sound The Same In Any Language. Contrary to what you were taught in school, the true religion of most of the population of the United States is litigation. The word “litigation,” by the way, is derived from the Latin word litis, meaning “ritual,” and agere, meaning “screwing.” It is said that litigation touches everyone all the time, occasionally...

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