Image by ssalonso via Flickr

 

I am a big fan of all those American Home Box Office police dramas that always end up in a law court or courtroom at some stage or another but sometimes what is being said then is completely baffling.

 

Phraseology

Bearing in mind that one has to overcome the linguistic drawls adopted by some actors to capture the local dialect and intonations from the Deep South all the way through to the Bronx, it is really the language that they are using and the phraseology that has lesser mortals switching off in droves. They have already been lured in by the thrilling action of the police chase and ensnaring of the perpetrator yet when the drama gets to court, the majority have no clue why the accused has been released and not sent down for several years.

 

Indictment

What is even more galling for some is that the legal eagles involved – lawyers to you and me – appear totally relaxed and unconcerned about the outcome while the rest of us are still trying to understand what just happened. That is just a simple indictment; wait till you get into the Stygian mire that is medical negligence, personal injury or intellectual property, which between the two of us has nothing to do with where you live. Or does it?

 

Legal Jargon

We are talking here about legal jargon, otherwise known as legalese (as in Portuguese or Lebanese – get it?) that apparent mystery of words that only appears to be understood by the judiciary and everyone else that signs up as part of that revered establishment.

 

Well known

In an effort to work through this mist enshrouded landscape, one could do worse than tackling Melbourne lawyers, Nowicki Carbone, a well-known firm of Australian law practitioners whose team of lawyers specialise in a variety of topics, including personal injury and medical negligence. Managing Partner of Nowicki Carbone is Anthony ‘Tony’ Carbone whose key area of expertise is personal injury litigation. Who better to explain legal jargon?

 

Simple Terms

Any review of the Nowicki Carbone publicity material clearly demonstrates that whatever their team of lawyers might say in court, steers well clear of any legalese clearly setting out all their capabilities and expertise in plain and simple terms that anyone can understand. Not only that but the advertorial and promotional video featured on their website is very much to the point in easy to comprehend language.

 

Minefield

Personal injury law is such a minefield at first but when one reviews that Nowicki Carbone has to say about it uses such simple language that it does not take someone armed with a dictionary or a thesaurus to understand the information they are putting across. That is the way it should be after all because the last thing you want when you have suffered an injury at work or elsewhere is to have some well meaning corporate or business lawyer speaking to you in a language that might as well be Swahili.

 

Expertise

The same is much the case in Nowicki Carbone’s other areas of expertise including transport accidents; medical negligence; public liability; superannuation; insurance etc. Clearly explained with no hint of legal jargon are the key questions are:

•                What is it?

•                What does it mean?

•                What am I entitled to?

•                What are my options?

•                Why should I speak to Nowicki Carbone?

 

All these questions are easily answered by Nowicki Carbone but there is one that has still not. If everything is this simple, why does it become so complicated when it gets to court?

 

Author Bio: While his bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies pointed to a legal career, Trent Ryan Quinlan became more interested in research where he uses his multi tasking and computing skills to weed out small details. He now works part time as a paralegal writing blogs for personal injury lawyers and legal assistance websites.