Bar Bulletin

Bar Bulletin

Latin and the Law, an Apt Home for a Dead Language

August 2017 Bar Bulletin

By Larry G. Johnson

The names we give our summer months all come from ancient Rome: June for Juno, queen of the gods; July for Julius Caesar; August for Augustus Caesar; and September for the number seven in Latin, septum.1

Besides surviving on our calendars, Latin has managed to persist in our legal writing, oral arguments and court decisions, not to mention Black’s Law Dictionary. One website alone totes up a total of 340 legal words or phrases in Latin that have evaded the language morgue.2

Put Some Salsa Latina intoYour Mumbo Jumbo Gumbo
Here are inter alia some ad hoc phrases...

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