The time pressures on a busy lawyer are enormous. But when it comes to working in English, these time pressures will affect the quality of your work. Try to find the time.
There is no choice but to slow down and become more careful when practising law in English. It is frustrating at the start, but your speed will improve as you become more experienced.
In particular, take the time to look up the following: (1) style points in a style guide, (2) grammar points in a grammar guide, and (3) words in a dictionary. Look up the same point or word repeatedly, if necessary. Some lawyers who fail to develop this habit end up becoming “stuck” in their mistakes. Ironically, the time taken to look these things up has the effect of speeding up the learning process.
This process of working with a word (i.e. being exposed to it in context, thinking about it and understanding it) is a necessary part of the vocabulary-building process. The number of times you are exposed to a word increases the chance of it becoming a permanent part of your vocabulary. One study says eight exposures. (According to Dr Peter Gu, however, the studies on how many exposures are necessary to remember a word are inconsistent.)
Other factors are also involved in whether you remember a word: its importance, the richness of the context, your level of interest and how good your vocabulary already is.
To do all this, you need to have the right desktop resources. Make sure you have an appropriate English style guide, an English grammar guide and a good English dictionary. Surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of Dutch lawyers polled say that they do not rely on an English style guide or an English dictionary at all, even though they are both readily available online. These resources are standard tools for any lawyer. Having them immediately available saves time and makes it more likely that you’ll use them.
Greg Korbee (Originally published in December 2013. Republished in January 2019.)
