TEACHING LAW TO NON-LAWYERS

Making law straightforward and understandable

Two years ago I came to a law firm, Sparke Helmore,¹ after an absence from practising law for over ten years. During that time I had been mainly teaching law to non-law students in TAFE, NSW.² So I had spent ten years trying to make law straightforward and understandable. It forced me to understand and explain legal terms, concepts and principles I had never fully understood before. For example, trying to explain ‘promissory estoppel’ to non-law students left me with a class full of blank faces, fidgeting and clock watching. So I summonsed the help of a person who was highly respected for making the law simple:³

I would prefer to put [estoppel] in language that the ordinary man understands:

It is a principle of justice and equity. It comes to this; when a man, by his words or conduct, has led another to believe that he may safely act on the faith of them - and the other does act on them – he will not be allowed to go back on what he has said or done when it would be just or inequitable for him to do so. (Lord Denning)

But even this was too wordy (and gender specific) for students aspiring to be bank officers, accountants, fire fighters, ambulance officers and beekeepers. Lord Denning was not about to be a role model for people who would be saving lives or producing honey. So I put it in my own words:

Don’t go back on a promise or the shit will hit the fan.

Their faces lit up and there was more energy in the classroom. I was speaking the language they understood. Lively debate followed. Although I didn’t put a label on it at the time, I was using plain English to teach the law.

Using plain English to teach the law

My non-law students asked many good questions - questions that law students would be too proud to ask. For example, a bewildered student asked the meaning of ‘judicial activism’? At the time the media was covering the controversy over native tile to indigenous lands and the argument that the High Court was creating rather than interpreting law.⁴

I tried to imagine the image that ‘judicial activism’ would convey to a person unfamiliar with legal discourse; and envisioned an unruly gaggle of judges storming the gates of Parliament in protest against the proposed abolition of their wigs and gowns. It was a concept that I took for granted but her critical reflection challenged my passive acceptance of its meaning. Her lack of exposure to legal language gave her the linguistic innocence to question the meaning of an unfamiliar legal term.