Let Them Eat Cake?

Oh oxymoron, how I love thee.  Your beauty lies in your simplicity and the possibility for cheekyness in your ranks is infinite:  legal brief, controlled chaos, common phenomenon, civil war, minor miracle, and of course my favorite, Microsoft Works, are all fine examples of the turns a phrase’s meaning can take when one simple word is added (Logical Reasoning, anyone?).

The need for you to pay close attention to words is not going to wane anytime soon. Why?

Because word interpretation is a central element in the comprehension and practice of law. In law school and in your law career, you will most likely be faced with situations where it will literally be your job to change the meaning (or perceived meaning) of a word or phrase. How a word or phrase is interpreted is often the deciding factor in the direction a case takes.  Take for example the lawsuit against Arianna Huffington, Founder, President, and Editor-in-Chief of HuffingtonPost.com. Ms. Huffington is currently being sued by Huffington Post “volunteer” bloggers who are arguing that they deserve to share some of the profits and value that they have created from their contributions to the site.

This case is not without precedent.  Back in the nineties two volunteer chat room monitors – from the then super popular AOL – sued AOL for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act after successfully arguing that AOL exploited their contributions to the product.  AOL ended up settling out of court for $15 million.

So while the intended outcome of this lawsuit is to prevent exploitative behaviors on the part of business owners, the effect it will have on the perceived meaning of words will certainly be a part of its legal fall out. Will the word “volunteer” no longer mean “to do for free” in the context of the law? These are the kind of questions that you – the future lawyers of America – will be helping to resolve someday soon.