>> Questions and Answers about Language Consulting with Lawyers

Judith N. Levi (j-levi@nwu.edu)

Note: Judith Levi teaches in the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University, 2016 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208-4090.

As my contribution to the Linguistic Enterprises session of the 1997 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, I offered these informal observations based on my 18 years of experience in serving as a linguist-consultant to lawyers in approximately 30 legal cases.

I do not, however, operate an independent business; rather, I do freelance consulting in addition to my academic employment, as the occasion arises.

Question: In what ways can/do linguists serve as consultants and/or expert witnesses in legal cases?

Answer: They may consult on an informal basis only (e.g., to educate the lawyer about the basic linguistic principles relevant to the case or the issue at hand -- or even whether there are any); typically this happens when the lawyer is trying to figure out the best way to handle the case. They may provide a written affidavit for a case, representing their analysis of the language issue at hand; this is often in order to show a judge (who may be wondering whether to admit the linguist's testimony) the kind of analysis, or the direction of analysis, that the linguist would offer in court, should the judge permit such testimony. They may offer a prudent attorney a second opinion about some other linguist's written report. They may (eventually) appear in a courtroom as an expert witness, where they will be subject to both direct and cross-examination. On the other hand, they may assist an attorney in preparing trial presentations or appellate briefs, without appearing as an expert witness themselves.

Question: Do I have to study law, or at least learn something about law, before I can work as a consultant to lawyers?

Answer: (Short version) Leave it to the lawyer to do the law; it's your job to analyze the language. However, understanding something about how law, and lawyers, work will ease the professional relationship -- but it can be learned as you go along.

Question: How can I become a language consultant to lawyers? How can I apply my linguistic expertise to legal cases -- and earn money doing so?

One answer: In my experience, the best way to become a valued consultant to attorneys is to first become a distinguished linguist in your own right, in your own chosen field of expertise, so that you can bring bona fide, independently-established credentials (based on high-quality training and research experience), to your work as a consultant and/or expert witness. Different legal cases need expertise from different linguistic subfields, so no one person will be able to serve all lawyers in any case. For example, there are many criminal cases in which the crucial evidence is surreptitiously recorded conversations; because such evidence is spoken language, such cases could require expertise ranging from acoustic phonetics to pragmatics to sociolinguistics to dialectology to conversational analysis itself. On the other hand, contracts cases, involving written language, are more likely to need semantic and pragmatic expertise. In any case, the more distinguished you are in your own right, the more valuable you can be to the lawyer who calls on you. (Of course, not every lawyer -- or client -- can afford to get the leader in the field, so sometimes linguists will be hired primarily because they're available and affordable. Then it's the job of the lawyers -- yours and opposing -- to be sure the credentials offered are appropriate to the job.)

It may be possible to get jobs as a consultant and/or expert witness without having established oneself in a particular subfield within the profession, but I'd say that's very rare -- and leaves you vulnerable to attack by opposing counsel (if you end up as an expert witness, rather than just as a consultant behind the scenes).

Question: How do the lawyers find linguists to consult with?

Answer: The really tricky thing is for the lawyer to discover that linguistics, and therefore linguists, exist and have some relevant expertise to offer them. In my own experience, each lawyer I've worked with has traced an almost unique path to my door. Some called the University Relations department and were referred to me by the UR people. Some called their local linguistics department, and reached me by a chain of referrals. Some have called English Departments first, and then been referred to me (or their local linguistics department). More recently, I've received calls from people who have read one or more of my legally-relevant publications.

If you don't want to wait for them to find you, you can inquire as to whether various legal groups (including prosecutors' and defense lawyers' associations) maintain lists of expert witnesses; and I guess you could advertise. I haven't, so can't advise on that.

Question: Where can I get a degree in Forensic Linguistics to prepare me for a consulting career?

One answer: As noted above, you are more likely to become active in "forensic linguistics" (in the sense of applying linguistics to legal cases) by pursuing a degree -- and a career -- like other linguists, and then seeing what opportunities arise for you to apply your expertise in legal arenas. I know of no Ph.D. program in Forensic Linguistics per se, although you can certainly find Ph.D. programs whose faculty includes at least one linguist (but usually not more) who works on language and law.

Question: What about J.D./Ph.D. programs (combining a law degree with a Ph.D. in linguistics)? Would they help me to pursue a career in language consulting for lawyers?

Answer: That's an awfully expensive and very demanding way to develop a consulting career. Such programs are designed to train academics who want to pursue research careers focused on the legal world (in our case, research on language in legal contexts), not to train consultants. And lawyers don't really care whether you have legal expertise; they're hiring you as a consultant to do what they can't do themselves -- which is be a linguist, and bring to the case the special perspective of the language scientist.

Question: What could I read to learn more about this field of endeavor?

Answer: Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. See the 100 or so entries in the section on "Forensic Linguistics" (pp. 40-43) in my Language and Law: A Bibliographic Guide to Social Science Research in the U.S.A. (Chicago: American Bar Association, 1994). It should be in most law libraries, and can be ordered from the ABA for $15, including shipping and handling; write to ABA Commission on College and University Legal Studies, 541 N. Fairbanks Ct., Chicago IL 60611-3314.)

2. Consult the new Routledge journal, Forensic Linguistics: The International Journal of Speech, Language, and the Law (1994- ). You might begin with my 1994 article, "Language as Evidence: The Linguist as Expert Witness in North American Courts" (1:1:1-26).

3. Subscribe to the FORENSIC-LINGUISTICS electronic list, whose editors are in the United Kingdom, but which has an international subscriber base. To subscribe, send email to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk with this message:
JOIN forensic-linguistics Yourfirstname(s) Yourlastname
(e.g., JOIN forensic-linguistics Jean-Paul Bel)

4. Read the LANGUAGE IN THE JUDICIAL PROCESS (LJP) electronic newsletter, maintained by Prof. Bethany Dumas (Dept. of English, University of Tennessee) on the Web, at http://hamlet.la.utk.edu/.
Or contact Prof. Dumas directly at: dumasb@utk.edu.

5. Consult any of the following:

• The Language Scientist as Expert in the Legal Setting: Issues in Forensic Linguistics ed. by Robert Rieber and William Stewart (NY: NY Academy of Sciences, 1990).

• Language and the Law, ed. by John Gibbons. (London: Longman, 1994).

• Language Crimes: The Use and Abuse of Language Evidence in the Courtroom by Roger Shuy (Oxford: Basic Blackwell, 1990).

• The Acoustics of Crime: The New Science of Forensic Phonetics by Harry Hollien. (New York: Plenum, 1990).

Maintained by Sally Morrison.