An invasion of armies can be resisted,
but not an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo
What can I teach you that you do not already know? You are so filled with legal ideas that they runneth over the brim of your proverbial cup and evaporate back into airy nothingness (1). Sorry, but I have no new legal ideas for you. You must make do with the legal ideas you already have. What I have, that you may lack, is a way to organize them. Pardon me for peeping and forgive me for saying, but, when I look into your head, I see disarray. Your legal ideas are not organized. Like marbles in a can, they freely rattle around without any rhyme or reason. Legal ideas shouldn't rattle around freely. Instead, they ought to be firmly secured in their own places within an organization of legal ideas. You supply the legal ideas; I'll supply the organization. At the door to your head is a knock; and, an offer of 'Housekeeping' is spoken. Are you ready to superimpose an organization over the legal ideas you already possess?
"Not me," I hear you say. "My legal ideas don't freely rattle around my head like marbles in a can."
Really? Are you quite sure? Can you articulate the methodology you use to organize them? Pray tell us how you organize them. Speak up! Has a cat got your tongue? Surely, there is something you can say about the organization of your legal ideas! If, despite a solid legal education and years of legal experience, you cannot articulate the methodology you use to organize your legal ideas, it is probably because you don't have one. Let me be the first to tell you that the meaning of a law is conveyed by both its words and its structure. A structure organizes a law into something other than a random collection of words. The words of a law, like ornaments, adorn the structure of a law. The words change; the structure stays the same. Your inability to articulate the methodology you use to organize your legal ideas tells me that you have absolutely no idea about the structure of a law. This is a problem of the highest magnitude. A law, like the human body, has a skeleton around which everything else, i.e. skin, organs, etc. , is organized. Moreover, just as a skeleton of a body can be broken down into bones, the structure of a law can be broken down into parts. An anatomist can name and number the bones in a human skeleton. Can you? Can you pass a simple test. Ask yourself
1) How many parts does a law have and
2) what is the name of each part?
It is such a simple test. Number and name the parts of a law. Can you do it?
Is it a cause for concern that our law schools are graduating students who are ignorant of the parts of a law and can neither number nor name them? Would you patronize a baker who is ignorant of the ingredients of a bun? Would you put your health into the hands of doctor who is ignorant of the parts of the human body? Why would any client take his case to a lawyer who is ignorant of the parts of a law? More ignominiously, why would any lawyer put himself or herself into the embarrassing position of not being able to explain the parts of a law to anyone who asks?
Before I show you how to optimize the organization of your legal ideas, let's first talk about scoreboards. You see them whenever you attend an athletic event. But have you ever thought about them? And how is thinking about them relevant? It is relevant because, as pedestrian as it sounds, a law is no different than a scoreboard.
A scoreboard presents meaning through its use of a constant - variable - values motif. This methodology of organization is also found in traffic lights, tax returns, and other forms. A constant - variable - values motif harnesses together two kinds of meaning - dynamic and static. Static meaning stays the same over time. It is constant. Dynamic meaning changes over time. It is a variable in which values fluctuate. Untamed, dynamic meaning is exuberantly fecund. There is no limit to the values in its variable. Harnessing static meaning to dynamic meaning tames it. By harnessing a constant to a variable that holds values, the constant serves as the sentry who limits the values that may enter the variable. For example, on a baseball scoreboard, there is an 'Errors' constant whose variable holds numeric values. The 'Error' constant bars any words denoting colors from entering its variable. The word 'red' will never appear on a scoreboard in the variable for the 'Errors' constant. There are other instances of the constant - variable - values motif on a baseball scoreboard such as 'Runs', 'Score', 'Hits', "At Bat' and more. Each instance is a part of the structure. Assembled together, the parts define the structure.
Structures that use a constant - variable - values motif are highly successful as communicators of meaning. One of the most meaning friendly characteristics of a scoreboard is its stubbornness. It never abandons the methodology by which it organizes meaning to accommodate the author who wishes to use it. The author must adapt to the scoreboard. Understanding comes easier when there is stability in the subject of study. Instability makes things harder to understand. Even though the values fluctuate in a structure that uses a constant - variable - values motif, the fluctuation is limited to a predictable range of values. In a constant - varaible - values motif, the constant is stable; the variable is stable; and the values are stable over a predictable range. Stability allows us to perfect - in advance and with time - a thorough understanding of each constant - variable - values relationship in general so, when we encounter it in a particular structure, understanding is instantaneously achieved. Moreover, by replicating the same constant - variable - values motif into other structures, instantaneous understanding travels with us as we move from structure to structure. The twin benefits of instantaneous and portable understanding are clearly evident in a scoreboard. Because meaning is organized on a scoreboard in a well-defined way and fans are intimately familiar with its organization, by glancing at a scoreboard, fans instantaneously understand the status of a game. Moreover, fans can get the same instantaneous understanding as they travel from ballpark to ballpark because each scoreboard is organized the same way. The organization of a scoreboard using the same well-defined constant - variable - values motif is a common language that all fans share and use and speak and think.
Baseball fans enjoy the twin benefits of instantaneous and portable understanding by virtue of the organization of their scoreboards. Why not lawyers? Wouldn't it be nice to bring the twin benefits of instantaneous and portable understanding to our laws? Why not organize the meaning of our laws as we organize the meaning of our scoreboards, traffic lights, tax returns and other forms? Alas! Lawyers are not yet taught how to organize their legal ideas. Each lawyer organizes a law in his own idiosyncratic way. Idiosyncrasy, however, is the enemy of meaning. The freedom of lawyers to be idiosyncratic in how they organized their laws is a bad freedom not a good freedom. Let's use our scoreboard example. Imagine that a disgruntled fan erases all of the constants from the face of a scoreboard. All that is left are the variables holding values. Has not the meaning conveyed by the scoreboard taken a huge hit? Without constants, the values in the variables become meaningless. What does the number '1' mean when it is written upon a spot on a scoreboard that has no associated constant? It means nothing. At least, baseball fans have constants that can be erased; lawyers, not yet. The constant - variable - values relationships that define a law have yet to be discovered and articulated. Our laws are all values and no constants and the values fluctuate with no predictability. Without the help of constants to bring predictability to the fluctuation of values, it is hard to figure out the meaning of our laws. Let's look at another example, the traffic light. The constants are the color and position of each lens. The variable is the illumination. Suppose each community structured its own traffic lights in accordance with its one unique, idiosyncratic whims. Every intersection is different. Some traffic lights have five lenses; some have three. Some use the colors, red, yellow and green; some use shades of pink. Without a single, standard, well understood traffic light structure implemented throughout an entire nation, driving through intersections controlled by idiosyncratic traffic lights is confusing and, hence, dangerous! In the legal profession, each law is like an idiosyncratically designed traffic light. There is no uniformity on how a law's meaning is organized and presented. While some lawyers are gifted with innate genius and intuitive instincts on how to organize and present the meaning of a law; many (dare I say most) are not. Hence, each law is a surprise. Without a simple and well-defined methodology to organize the meaning of our laws, is it not obvious why our laws are so terribly obfuscated by inscrutable legalese?
Each of our laws is organized around a common structure. The words of a law, like ornaments, adorn the structure of a law. The words change; the structure stays the same. It repeats itself again and again in every instance of a law. This common structure consists of a mere handful of legal thoughts, i.e. a common 'core' or 'genetic code'. Each legal thought contained in the handful is equivalent to a part of a law. Assemble the parts together and, voilà, they form the structure of a law.To generate a law's meaning, both its words and its structure cooperate. Anyone who wishes to push meaning into or pull meaning out of a law must be mindful of a law's structure. Any failure to respect the structure of a law generates inscrutable legalese and legal misunderstanding.
Aren't you a bit curious?
Why practice chemistry, without the periodic table of the elements? Why practice law, without the periodic table of the elements of a law?
If you cannot see the structure of a law and cannot name and number its parts, be concerned. The meaning of a law is conveyed by both its words and its structure. Suppose your adversaries can see this additional layer of meaning and you cannot. Recall that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
A Unified Theory of a Law - in all its simplicity - is presented in its entirety on the pages of this website. To learn, all you have to do is click.
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John Bosco is available
to teach
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Give him a call: 718-513-9880 or email him: BBMBOSCO@gmail.com
For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard
Acts 4:20