We’ve all had the crazy experience of learning a new word – then suddenly hearing it everywhere we go, right?
That’s the point of exposing you to some legal terms you might hear from your lawyers when you join a lawsuit. It’s a misguided notion that attorneys use terms flippantly or to intimidate regular people. They might at first seem intimidating to nonlegal eagles like most of us; however, their special lingo is really no different from that of, say, a hairdresser who knows lots of salon jargon your lawyer may never have heard – unless they decided to go for hair extensions or a balayage.
Let’s go back to the idea of learning a new word or term and then being seemingly bombarded by it. The point is: if you know these terms and can use them, you make them your own. So, let’s continue with the second batch of five legal words you may not know yet because they used to go right over your head:
1
VERDICT:
In the legal system, a verdict is the decision made by a jury as to whether a defendant (the entity you’re accusing) is “liable” for injuries or “not liable.” Remember,
civil cases are different from criminal cases where the jury determines “innocence” or “guilt” and then a judge will typically impose a prison sentence on the wrongdoer.
2
SETTLEMENT:
Sometimes either party – for our discussion, the accused entity (defendant), may wish to settle the matter before trial, outside the courtroom, at a negotiating table with the plaintiff’s lawyers. Settlements are often a better option than trial verdicts, because they spare both parties the exposure/ pressure of a court trial. (Read: settlements can be private, while verdicts are always public.)3
CLASS ACTION:
A
class action lawsuit involves a large group of people suffering from the same or similar injury, represented by a few torchbearers leading the charge; this (usually) large class is treated as one and the same. In our first
Legal Lingo 101 blog, we discussed the meaning of
MASS TORT and
MDL – the kind of lawsuits we engage in – terms that are sometimes used interchangeably. Mass torts/ MDLs, unlike class actions, offer more individualized awards for plaintiffs depending on the severity of injury and other relevant details.
4
CONTINGENCY:
A payment arrangement in which a law firm entirely accepts the cost of defending a
plaintiff (you) and must achieve a positive result for you in order to receive payment. Because they’re betting the farm (their money and potentially hundreds of hours of preparation),
contingency lawyers – the only kind we work with, by the way – carefully assess a potential case before accepting it.
5
BELLWETHER (TRIAL):
Historically, a “bellwether” referred to the bell worn around the neck of the lead sheep in a flock. Because all the other sheep followed the leader, a shepherd could quickly locate the flock in darkness or bad weather by the sound of the bell.
Translated to the legal world, specifically civil lawsuits, a bellwether trial is a “sample” trial made up of a few hand-picked cases agreed upon by the plaintiffs and the defendants as case examples. Future outcomes may be affected by the outcome of bellwether trials, because they can indicate which way the wind blows when the rest of the cases proceed.
And So, Again, Why Is Knowing These Terms a Big Deal?
Because we want you to be more empowered during the course of your case and because we never want you to be confused by simple aspects of the law, especially when they are mistakenly considered hairy.
The next batch of five terms will follow shortly, as we continue helping you build your own legal eagle vocab. And, as we always say: no way you’re expected to become a legal expert.
Meantime, please help yourself to more legal definitions from our last blog on legal lingo or our legal glossary.
