One of the many things courts do is interpret the statutes written by Congress. Sometimes that is no easy task, because the language in statutes can be vague and ambiguous. When that happens, courts have an arsenal of tools they use to help them with the interpretations and make decisions. (You will learn all about this in Administrative Law, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds—I promise!)

One of the tools in that interpretive toolbox is called noscitur a sociis. (As you may know, judges love Latin.) Literally, it means “a word is known by the company it keeps.” Courts use the phrase to help them understand the meaning of a word within a statute when that meaning seems ambiguous. They look to the words surrounding the word in question (the word’s “company”) to try to figure out which of two or more possible meanings Congress had in mind when the statute was written.

For an easy way to think about this, ask yourself an age-old question: Is a tomato a fruit or a veggie? All kinds of arguments abound on this topic (e.g., “It’s a fruit! It has seeds!”), but we will try to figure it out here using noscitur a sociis.

If the following three items are all either fruits or veggies, what is a tomato? A fruit!

What about these three? Now a tomato is a veggie! And that is noscitur a sociis in practice.

Note: The Supreme Court actually ruled on this question in an 1893 case called Nix v. Hedden (but they did not use noscitur a sociis). After a lot of back and forth, the highest judges in the land eventually determined that a tomato is in fact a vegetable. Why? Because you eat it at dinner, not for dessert. So much for high-minded legal analysis.

by Charmayne Palomba, jdMission Senior Consultant

In this three-part series, I will be highlighting words you should never use in your personal statements. 

1. Irregardless. The primary reason you should not use this is because it is not actually a word, although it is often used. The proper word to convey the intended meaning here is just “regardless,” meaning despite, or without regard to—no “ir-” needed!

2. Alright. The word “alright” is often mistakenly used for the correct spelling of the term, which is all right. As my favorite grammarian Grammar Girl notes, it is just a misspelling of “all right.” Although the use—and therefore acceptance—of the term “alright” is growing, the correct spelling is still two words. Here is what Grammarist has to say on the topic:

“The use of alright in place of all right has never been condoned by dictionaries or usage authorities, but this convention is not likely to last. Web searches already generate approximately one alright for every all right, and the brevity and versatility of alright is likely to overpower the clunkiness (in some uses) of all right.

Still, even though alright is closing ground on all right, the latter is never wrong and the former is still considered problematic by some.”

Next week: Unnecessary Segues

Defense Distributed has recently focused on producing “lower receivers” for AR-15s, the most regulated component of the firearm, which can be combined with other parts that are easily obtainable online, in addition to high-capacity magazines capable of firing 600 rounds. Above the Law offers a more scathing critique of Wilson’s project, concluding that his justification for sharing designs for these components (in addition to his new focus on producing high-capacity magazines) on the basis of combating “censorship” seems like the reasoning of someone “who must have failed Con Law.”

Marissa Piesman is an Assistant New York State Attorney General.  She is also coauthor of The Yuppie Handbook: The State-of-the Art Manual for Young Urban Professionals and the Nina Fischman series, which includes Unorthodox Practices, Personal Effects, Heading Uptown, Close Quarters, Alternate Sides and Survival Instincts.  The New York Times Book Review calls the series “hilarious . . . the Fischman women are delightfully brash.”  Piesman’s real experiences as an attorney for the State of New York are reflected in Fischman’s trials and tribulations.  Fischman argues on behalf of angry, elderly tenants in Unorthodox Practices, much as the author does in her day job.  Piesman recently held a forum for frustrated co-op and condo owners fighting construction defects.  During the forum, she said, “New York used to be known as a well-built city, but the last construction boom had so many problems, it’s really like being in Florida.”  This could easily be a sentence out of Fischman’s own (fictitious) mouth.

You may have seen the term before in a contract—that is where it usually appears. It sounds as though it means “majority rule,” but it does not!

It means “chance occurrence” or “unavoidable accident,” and its function is to free both parties from liability or obligation when an event outside of their control occurs. You can imagine examples of what this might be: a hurricane, a tsunami, a war, even a strike.

If such an event means one or both parties cannot fulfill their obligations under the contract, those obligations can be waived, but usually only for a time. In practice, most force majeure clauses do not excuse a party’s nonperformance entirely. They just suspend it for the duration of the force majeure.

So the next time you see this term in a contract, know that it does not mean that your agreement is subject to majority rule—unless that is the name of next season’s big hurricane.

by Mary Adkins, jdMission Senior Consultant

In this three-part series, I will be sharing words never to use in your personal statements. 

Some verbs you simply never need to use, because other, simpler words do the job—and do it more effectively. Today’s words are the following:

1. Utilize. Only in a very few circumstances should you use the word “utilize” rather than “use,” and these circumstances will most likely never arise in your personal statement. To utilize means to make practical and effective use of, as in your body utilizing iron, or to use something in a way in which it was not originally intended. If you mean use, just say use—no need to try to sound fancy.

2. Explicate. Let me explicate why you should use “explain” rather than “explicate”: because what you mean is that you are going to explain something, and the way to express that is just to say so. Yes, the two words are synonyms, but one is used more, and we all know which one that is, so go with it.

Next week I will cover “non-words” to expunge from your essay! 

You might be a fan of the wildly popular book series The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency—also a short-lived HBO television series—about a zaftig detective from Botswana named Precious Ramotswe. Its Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith, also teaches medical law at the University of Edinburgh and is, in fact, a well-respected medico-legal ethicist.  This may not be surprising to fans of the book series, considering that Ramotswe often finds herself entangled in medical mysteries, and being a righteous Botswana woman, struggles with ethical issues.  McCall Smith has also penned another series of books, The Isabel Dalhousie Novels, about a woman who is obsessed with answering philosophical meanderings as editor of The Review of Applied Ethics. So, seeing semblances of McCall Smith’s character in the heroines of his books may not be much of a stretch.

When you picture a lawyer, he or she is probably standing in a courtroom talking to a judge or jury, right? During oral argument, lawyers from both sides present their legal arguments out loud—and judges can respond however they like. Some judges sit sagely and quietly as the lawyer presents the argument as he or she has prepared it. But others interrupt, ask questions and engage the lawyer in an ongoing dialogue. An inquisitive judge (or court as a whole) is known as a “hot bench” and keeps lawyers off script and on their toes.

The current Supreme Court is considered a hot bench, with one notable exception: On January 14, 2013, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke during oral arguments for the first time in seven years.

Synonyms:

by Charmayne Palomba, jdMission Senior Consultant

The Spin-Off: David Lam, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, helped complete a $54 billion deal with the spin-off of AbbVie from Abbott Labs. Lam earned his JD from Yale Law School, where he was managing editor of the Yale Law Journal.

The Tech Deal: The dealmaker behind Facebook Inc.’s whopping $736.5 million acquisition of Instagram—at the time an 18-month-old company with 13 employees—was Stephen Venuto. A lawyer with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Venuto earned his JD from Cornell Law School and now heads Orrick’s Emerging Companies Group in Silicon Valley.

The Long Haul: In what was by far the longest deal of his career, NYU Law alumnus Paul Shim spent seven years working on the $2.3 billion sale of Dollar Thrifty to rental car giant Hertz. Shim is a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.