Law dictionaries and legal English comprehension are mayor players in the acting world stage in courts of law.

Simply through the Government manipulation of language we now find ourselves in a big pile of poo-poo. Because Governments trick us with their words.

As Confucius (551 BCE – 479 BCE) says,
“When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.”

When you want accuracy in communication, Legal English is the preferred language. Also known as King’s English, or the Language of the Court Room, Legal English is extremely stable, requiring thousands of years for changes in meaning.

Because accuracy is required for good legal communication, legal definitions tend to be rather verbose. The extended explanations are necessary to achieve that accuracy.

Legal dictionaries are not all called dictionaries. The more thorough dictionaries are entitled “Corpus Juris” and “Words and Phrases.”

A given word could require fifty or more pages to arrive at its exact meaning.

Other dictionaries (in descending order of this author’s preference) include Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (1872 Edition), Ballentine’s Law Dictionary, and Black’s Law Dictionary (4th edition or earlier).

Later editions of Bouvier’s Law Dictionary are more like legal encyclopedias

Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th through 7th Editions are not as accurate because references to common law are progressively removed, and Roman Civil Law concepts are augmented in order to conform to the law enforcement needs of political power centers such as the Federal Government and the United Nations.

The rule of thumb is that older dictionaries are useful for understanding natural rights, common law, personal sovereignty, and the people’s point of view.

Newer dictionaries are useful for understanding civil rights, Roman civil law, centralized authority, and the government’s point of view.

All attorneys are trained in the latter.

Judges may go to special seminars to learn the former.

Source: https://www.1215.org/lawnotes/lawnotes/language.htm