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LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Università di Bari 22 gennaio 2008
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LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

Jun 22, 2015

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Page 1: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL ENGLISHLucia Sollecito

Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere

Università di Bari22 gennaio 2008

Page 2: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL ENGLISH

The Legal Profession

The Language of Company Law

The Language of Banking

The Language of Contract Law The Language of Employment Law

The Language of the Law of Tort

Understanding Contracts

The Language of Business Law

Page 3: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL ENGLISH

The Legal Profession(also in terms of differences between Common

Law amd Civil Law systems)

Legal English in Italy Corruption News

Page 4: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LAW

Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovreign government

of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver justice.

Page 5: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

A lawyer is "a person learned in the law as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law.

Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers to perform legal services.

Page 6: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

An attorney at law in the US is a practitioner in a Court of Law who is legally qualified to posecute and defend actions in such court on the retainer of clients. Alternative terms include, attorney and counselor (or counsellor) at law, attorney, and lawyer.The US legal system has a united legal profession, and does not draw a distinction between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not. Many other common law jurisdictions, as well as some civil law jurisdictions, have a separation, such as the solicitor and barrister/advocate in the UK.

Page 7: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

A solicitor is a type of lawyer in many common law jurisdictions, such as the UK, HK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and in a few regions of the USA. In some common law countries the legal profession is split between solicitors who represent and advise clients, and a barrister who is retained by a solicitor to advocate in a legal hearing or to render a legal opinion…..

Page 8: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

There is no such split in the United States, Canada, some Australian jurisdictions, and New Zealand.In some Australian States, as well as in Canada, the legal profession is “fused” which means that a lawyer can be a solicitor, barrister, and proctor.

Page 9: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

A judge or justice is an official who presides over a court. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions.

Page 10: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Judges in the legal systems

Significant differences between the role of a judge in the ComL system descended from British practice, and CivLaw systems descended from continental European judicial practice.

Page 11: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Common law judicial procedure generally contemplates a single evidentiary trial (many cases are actually resolved through testimony taken from witnesses in isolated depositions prior to trial that support

written presentations to a judge).

Civil law judges must have some statutory point of departure for their legal rulings.

Page 12: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Judges in civil law systems

In most CivLaw jurisdictions with inquisitorial systems, judges go to special schools to be trained after graduating with a law degree from a university; after such training they often become investigating magistrates. However, the inquisitorial system is primarily in use in countries of Southern Eu that were influenced by Napoleon’s Code. ….

Page 13: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

In Northern Europe, the adversarial system is predominant in criminal matters. Nevertheless, judges in both Northern and Southern Continental Europe generally do not have backgrounds as practicing attorneys ,even though they are legally trained.

Page 14: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Judges in common law systems

In ComLaw countries, such as the United States, and those with roots in the Commonwealth of Nations, judges have a number of powers which are not known to exist, or are not acknowledged to exist, in CivLaw legal systems.One of these powers is the “contempt of court" power….

Page 15: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

In a common law system, a judge typically has the power to summarily punish with a fine or imprisonement any misconduct which takes place in the coutroom, and to similarly punish violations of the court’s orders, after a hearing, when they take place outside the courtroom. This power, in turn, may be used by common law judges to enforce orders for injunctive relief, which is a court order to take or refrain from taking some particular act, directed at the individual who must do so.

Page 16: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Judges in a common law system are also empowered to make law guided by past precedents, or to choose to ignore past precedents as no longer enforcable, based on a concept known as “stare decisis" ("to stand by what has been decided"), in cases where no statute or prior case clearly mandates a particular result, and in cases where past precedents, for some reason, no longer appear to provide firm guidance as to the current state of the law.

Page 17: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Judges in CivLaw systems, in contrast, are strictly forbidden from "making law" and, as a general rule, are not bound by or even encouraged to refer to precedents established in prior similar cases.

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LEGAL PROFESSION

Civil law judges have some powers not usually held by ComLaw judges. Most importantly, a ComLaw judge is usually required to base a decision almost exclusively on the evidence provided by the parties. In contrast, a civil law judge frequently has the authority to investigate the facts of a case independently of evidence provided by the parties to that case, in what is known as an “inquisitorial” role.

Page 19: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

Are Common Law and Civil Law merging??

The opposition between civil law and common law legal systems has become increasingly blurred, with the growing importance of jurisprudence (almost like case law but in name) in civil law countries, and the growing importance of statute law and codes in common law countries (for example, in matters of criminal law, commercial law and procedure).

Page 20: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

Some terminology:MAGISTRATE

ComLaw: usually has limited authority to administer and enforce the law;Civlaw: may be a judge of a Superior Court.

PROSECUTORIs the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries adopting the ComLaw adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. ./.

Page 21: LEGAL ENGLISH Lucia Sollecito Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature ...

LEGAL PROFESSION

PROSECUTIONThe legal party responsible for presenting the case against an individual suspected of breaking the law in a criminal trial.

Prosecutor’s OfficeAttorney General Office

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The latest from Italy

Italy Corruption News