Going through some old photos, I found one showing me with a man I met many years ago, and while I don’t believe in “name dropping,” the guy has been deceased for so long that I don’t see the harm in quoting something he said with which I wholeheartedly agree. (Hmm, to avoid the split infinitive, maybe I should say “with which I agree wholeheartedly.”)
Described by colleagues as a no-nonsense, focused man who commanded loyalty by his sheer competence, Mr. Warren did not seem interested in using his position to win social prestige, Mr. Leebrun said. He did, however, use it as a bully pulpit. He repeatedly denounced what he called the decline of the liberal arts curriculum, complaining that the inability of law students to write ”reasonably literate English prose” had reached ”epidemic proportions.”
I don’t know when he repeatedly denounced it, but if the inability to write ”reasonably literate English prose” had reached ”epidemic proportions” in his day, imagine what the man might think now.
I’m reminded of something I said years ago about what I had witnesssed even more years ago:
Years ago, I ate lunch with a couple of law professors who got into a ferocious argument over how to grade essays written by law students who were “unable to write an English sentence.” One professor thought it was unfair to penalize a conscientious law student for what he should have learned in the seventh grade, but the other thought it was equally unfair to inflict an illiterate attorney on his clients, and on society.
Should illiterate attorneys be allowed to practice law?
Interesting question indeed.
The answer may depend on which “side” you’re on.
Most attorneys would love nothing more than having illiterates as legal opponents.
So I guess whether illiteracy sucks depends.
Comments
2 responses to “Epidemiological vindication?”
One professor thought it was unfair to penalize a conscientious law student for what he should have learned in the seventh grade, but the other thought it was equally unfair to inflict an illiterate attorney on his clients, and on society.
Obviously, they are not illiterate. But they do not know how to write clear, simple, precise and concise statements in the English language.
Yes, such law students should be penalized, in the hope that they will get their acts together and learn to write simple, precise, and concise statements in the English language.
Clients who have attorneys who cannot write simple, precise and concise statements are being shortchanged. It might be said that attorneys who write obfuscatory prose are liable for being sued for malpractice.
Doctrinaire grammarians need to get over themselves. In English you can split an infinitive, so we do.
Where illiterate lawyers are concerned, I think it’s time their instructors were charged with fraud and the professors banned from practicing law,