Jokes ridicule lawyers ____ using legalese, and suggest that the public does not understand it very

_____. Although lawyers defend legalese ____ particularly precise, it is also a way to mystify clients
and help justify legal fees. Lawyers ____ use a lot of language, leading ___ the perception that they are
____ of hot air. A somewhat contradictory theme is that they skilfully manipulate words to _____ the
purposes of their clients:

Did you hear about the old farmer who shot his wife? He had a great lawyer who got him off the hook.
"Be reasonable, Your Honor," the lawyer argued during the trial. "After all, my client's a widower!"

Of course, to a large _____, making the best possible argument for your client is exactly what
lawyering is ___ about.
But even ______ lawyers have a reputation for being smooth talkers, many ______ incapable of writing
in ordinary English. ________, everything seems to come out in legalese, a point that joke-makers
have not _____:

Question: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with a lawyer?
Answer: An offer you can't understand.

In _____, even spoken legal language is not always understood, ______ can be a problem for people
who find themselves ________ in legal proceedings:

Judge: Are you the defendant?

Defendant: Nope, I'm the guy who stole the chickens.

Another feature of legal language is that it is very impersonal. Here's an illustration of _____ using the
passive voice can be a problem:

After a nasty divorce case, the judge came down strongly in favour of Mrs. Smith. "This court orders
that you shall be awarded $2000 per month in alimony," the judge solemnly intoned.
"That's very nice of you, Your Honor," Mr. Smith remarked. "I'll try to chip in a few dollars now and
then myself."

_______ is now a movement trying to make legal language more understandable to ordinary people
called the Plain English movement.

Daniel Webster was ________ for his oratory skills. Called upon to assist the FAMOUS
prosecution in a murder case, Webster addressed any _________ the jurors might have HESITATE
harbored about their power to punish the guilty. In doing so, he provided a _________ MEMORY
defense of the theory of deterrence: FOUNDATION
LEGAL
The criminal law is not _________ in a principle of vengeance. It does not punish IMPOSITION
that it may inflict suffering. The humanity of the ______ feels and regrets every pain PREVENTION
that it causes, every hour of restraint it ________, and more deeply still, every life it RESTRICTION
forfeits. But it uses evil, as the means of ___________ greater evil. It seeks to deter
from crime, by the example of punishment. This is its true, and only true main
object. It _________ the liberty of the few offenders, that the many who do not offend,
may enjoy their own liberty. It forfeits the life of the murderer, that other murders
may not be committed. DETER
A very different picture of the _________ effect of punishment was painted by ORATORY
Clarence Darrow, another great legal _______. Darrow sought to persuade a judge to PLEAD
spare the lives of his two young clients, who had ______ guilty to a sensational
murder:

What about this matter of crime and punishment, anyhow? ... Mr. Savage tells
this court that if these boys are hanged, there will be no more murder. DEFENCE
Mr. Savage is an optimist. He says that if the __________ are hanged there will be
 no more boys like these.
I could give him a sketch of punishment, punishment beginning with the brute
which killed something because something hurt it; the punishment of the savage; if a
person is injured in the tribe, they must injure someone in the other tribe; it makes
no difference who it is, but somebody. If one is killed his friends or family must kill in
return.
You can trace it all down through the history of man. You can trace the ________,
the boilings, the hanging of people in England at the crossroads as examples for all to
see. At the end of his long argument, Darrow had the judge in tears. Despite angry BURNT
mobs ______ after a hanging, the judge sentenced the young men to life in ________.

LUST

IMPRISONMEN
T
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