The Lingua Franca of the Legal Profession

…All my notions – notions of good and evil, of pleasant and unpleasant, of funny and serious, of ugly and beautiful – are essentially middle-class notions; my taste in books and food and clothes, my sense of honour, my table manners, my turns of speech, my accent, even the characteristic movements of my body, are the products of a special kind of upbringing and a special niche about half-way up the social hierarchy.

-George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

Many in the legal profession who came from a working- or middle-class background can relate intimately to Orwell’s account of the bounded nature of common sense. The university educated, law school initiated, and professionally inaugurated, each have an intersubjective understanding of how people ought to speak, behave, and make decisions while members of their communities. This shared intuition expresses itself as a language that is not always communicated on parchment or through the spoken word. It may be expressed in the preferences one has, the assumptions one makes, the values one prioritizes, and the expectations one forms about routine human activities. It is a common tongue, a lingua franca, that draws the boundaries of what is permissible in these guarded communities, including in our own legal profession. Most importantly, for the purposes of this paper, it shapes who we – as a profession – deem worthy of admission into our ranks. In what follows, I will try to flesh out what this lingua franca is and is not, how it functions to assimilate, and by extension exclude, advocates who may think differently, and how the legal profession may try to correct the problem.

Language is Louder than Words

A. Latin as the Language of Empire

Before proceeding, it may be of help to better explain what exactly a lingua franca is and what work this metaphor is doing in expressing the central idea of this article. At its most basic, a lingua franca is a language used to communicate between populations who speak vernaculars that are not mutually intelligible.[1] During the height of the Roman Empire, for example, Latin and Greek became the lingua franca of the vast empire Rome had established by 117 AD. Whether those who were governed originally spoke Celtic, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, or Germanic, it was expected that Latin would be the mode by which those societies communicated when interacting with and operating in civic institutions. This adoption of a common tongue was not done voluntarily. It was an imposition from the imperial metropole onto its subjects. A practice that Canagarajah and Ben Said, both Professors of Applied Linguistics, had described as Linguistic Imperialism.[2]

The main idea of this paper is that this power-based, assimilative function of language finds expression in the profession of law in Canada through its own lingua franca, which traverses the realms of linguistics, semiotics, and normativity. It is imperial in its ambition: to impose and acculturate all those who enter the profession. It is imperial in its methods: to use the thrust of institutional power to police, sanction, and discipline. And its imperial in its consequences: to flatten distinctions, stigmatize peculiarity, and reward homogenization.

B. Two Fine Distinctions

It is important at this juncture to draw two fine distinctions that will help guide the reader’s understanding of what will follow.

First, there is a noteworthy difference between the literal language the legal profession deploys to communicate amongst themselves, and the more metaphysical language that this paper is focusing on. There is a considerable body of literature already available that focuses on the importance of using plain language in the legal profession to lower barriers to entry for those looking to access the justice system, partake in proceedings on behalf of themselves, and comprehend the various statutes, regulations, and judgements that make up the law.[3] There has even been some commentary provided on why the translation of legal resources from ‘legalese’ to the plain-language vernacular is not enough to bridge the literacy gap between lawyers and non-lawyers.[4] My central contention goes beyond the literal word or even the way lawyers think about legal problems. It focuses on normativity itself, expressed through the medium of words, behaviours, habits, rituals, practices, principles, norms, and expectations. Something that penetrates and permeates a lawyer’s life both inside and outside of their courtrooms, boardrooms, and offices. Where the ought is one everyone ought to share.

Second, it is important distinguish between lingua franca as practice and lingua franca as expectation. This article is concerned more with the latter than the former. Which is to say, while the lingua franca may have widespread adoption as practice, it is ubiquitous as a normative baseline for how a lawyer ought to speak, behave, and relate to the world around them. Thus, it may be true that some lawyers do not deploy legalese in as aggressive a manner as others. That specific terms of art may be entirely outside the lexicon of certain corners of the profession, while being an essential part of the language spoken in others. Or that styles of advocacy may deviate often and in noticeable ways from the baseline. But the presence of variation is baked into why lingua franca-as-practice is widespread while lingua franca-as-expectation is universal. Practice necessarily deviates; and when it does, the universality of an expectation becomes self-evident. To identify something as deviation is to accept and internalize the normative weight of the lingua franca. It is the point of origin. 0 and 0 on the XY graph. The baseline by which all standard deviations are identified, policed, and disciplined. And most importantly, a point of demarcation between those inside and those outside the ‘profession’.

C. The Lexicon

So, what is exactly does this language look like? Its content flows from its purpose. The lingua franca of the legal profession looks to professionalize by osmosis. It presupposes a conception of the legal professional that, when fully internalized by way of fluency, preserves the institutional authority lawyers have built up in the common law world over centuries. Its lexicon is made up of those intuitions, values, and turns of phrase that maximize the profession’s credibility, protect a client’s interests, and create a culture of collegiality. For the purposes of this article, I will not touch on whether these stated aims are actually those that should structure the profession’s normative baseline or whether they are mutually compatible. That would be better served in a sequel to this article, I will take them as a given to illustrate how what the lingua franca professes to safeguard may not align in symmetry with what the lingua franca actually asks or expects of a lawyer.

The precise content of the lingua franca is of course revealed through induction. It is based on what lawyers do, how they do it, and how they go about deciding to do it, rather than what they are asked of or required to do under the Rules. It is most certainly not based on what lawyers say. I will be relying on my personal experiences in the profession to illustrate how this language operates and what it consists of. A more muscular and formal analysis would be ideal, but I will leave that discussion for where it belongs: the ivory coated towers of the academy.

Its worth noting that what makes the lingua franca so potent and enduring is that it escapes codification, operating both through peer-based transmission and enforcement, and subtler exercises of vertical power, so personal experiences become one of the only ways to fully grasp its character. This makes the methodology of this article unconventional by nature, and a perfect fit for this platform.

Let us start with a clear and obvious example of when the lingua franca does help facilitate its aims. The lingua franca includes a strict adherence to silence when it comes to revealing any details, no matter how trivial or consequential, regarding a matter a lawyer is working on for a client. That adherence is not merely what is sketched out in the Rules. It may be true that a lawyer must hold in “strict confidence all information concerning the business and affairs of the client”.[5] But the profession as a whole conceives of this duty in a broader and more expansive sense: refusing to provide details that may, without directly naming the client, nevertheless allow one to draw inferences about who is being referred to; not repeating or disseminating information about other lawyers’ clients; and steering clear of any discussion of a client’s publicly revealed affairs.

To do otherwise would not necessarily invite the sanction of the high priestess of the LSO, but it would be taken as an indicator to other lawyers and clients that the lawyer in question has not fully embraced the foundational values from which both the Rules (and the more informal code of conduct) flow form. In such a case, the lingua franca is doing important and productive normative work, applying community-based penalties for those who diverge from crucial principles.

The problem arises when there is bona fide disagreement about whether the content is actually required for the purposes stated, or whether these informal rules are meant to satisfy an alternative function closely related to cultural, class-based, racial, or gendered preferences. For example, the Rules require a lawyer to represent a client “resolutely and honourably within the limits of the law”.[6] Yet, this is not the extent of the obligation for those who are fluent in the lingua franca. The intuition, which came as a surprise to those like me who grew up far from the hallowed grounds of affluence, is that a lawyer is to not express their personal agreement with their client’s cause. It of course makes perfect sense if the lawyer is expected to set aside their disagreement. To do otherwise would be to materially impact their ability to provide their client with the best possible advocacy. However, the notion that, outside of a pro-bono matter, the lawyer should remain stoic and impartial even as the case may have a direct impact on the lawyer’s own rights or the health of their own community is not intuitively obvious to me. Nor should it be. It is not the rights or the health of the upper classes, the non-racialized, or the secular that is usually put on trial. To them, extricating oneself from the cause of their client despite personally agreeing with it rarely will mean remaining apathetic to something that may touch on their human dignity. But to us, it often does.

If I was representing a plaintiff-focused labour and employment practice on the side of a hospitality union, as the son of a waitress and a line cook, it would come as a surprise to those I grew up with that I reserve any and all expression of my personal agreement with the cause. And yet, if I did so, I know that would attract the silent condemnation of my peers and more broadly those in my profession. Is there not value in a lawyer who expresses a passion and investment in the outcome of their client’s cause given the underpinning collective, class-based interests at stake? What precisely is the downside of doing so? Looking at the stated aims of the lingua franca, one would presume it would impact the quality of service provided to the client, the culture of collegiality in the profession, or the credibility of lawyers more generally. And yet, this seems far-fetched, counterintuitive even. The nexus appears weak, but the rule remains strong.

So how exactly then does this lingua franca assimilate and exclude?

To Assimilate and Exclude

Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein once stated that, ‘the limits of my language means the limits of my world’.[7] While the lingua franca of the legal profession may look to mould a freshly minted lawyer’s intuitions about appropriate behaviour in service of institutional authority, by structuring one’s horizon of what is possible, permissible, and desirable, and that which is not, it has a limiting effect on the type of person that may be a lawyer and advocate. It necessarily looks to flatten crucial distinctions in how lawyers may intuit differing solutions to the same problems or prioritize different values when faced with the same ethical dilemma. What may, to one pair of eyes, appear to be an exhibition in professionalism, may, to another, be a sign of isolation from present realities.

For example, in the wake of the War in Gaza I observed a chill slowly takeover the legal profession. Silence, neutrality, and apathy were the binding resolutions passed in the boardrooms of the partnerships. I am not here to state my own views on the conflict one way or another, but the point applies whichever side you fall on. To be clear, deviations happened. Lawyers spoke out in one direction or another, often being personally affected by what was taking place. But these were deviations. They were described as such, coded as such, and merited conclusions about the ‘competency’ and ‘judgement’ of the lawyer as such. The intuition that in a conflict as sensitive and contentious as this one, unstated and unwritten rules immediately went into effect about what was and was not permissible (personal) expression about the consequences of the war, was not shared by everyone. Especially to those impacted, to those who have been similarly situated, and to those who saw many of its downstream effects have a material impact at home.

Was it really an exhibition of careful judgement and discipline to refrain from expressing any view on the conflict, no matter how personal a capacity it was communicated through? Were the interests of clients actually implicated based on what Associates, Partners, or Counsel said on their personal social medias? Was the culture of collegiality necessarily one which required the sterilization of firm disagreements between lawyers about life, death, and humanity, even if it was expressed with courtesy and in good faith? Was the credibility of the legal profession adversely impacted if lawyers made public remarks about what they were witnessing in the Levant? None of these conclusions flowed naturally from the premises. These were not ‘intuitions’ that were easily activated for those who were not part of the traditional brass of the profession. These are intuitions that could only come from those raised in white-collar households, where one’s parents, siblings, and friends all practiced in high-skilled, service-based accredited professions that saw friction of any kind as fatal to business relationships, without questioning how that might impact those who have a personal stake in the friction or were raised in the vignettes of tragedy quietly observed from afar.

In this way, the lingua franca has an assimilative effect, expecting those with rough edges and coarse backgrounds to decouple themselves from their communities and the events that may impact them. To adopt as intuition what is merely a highly context-sensitive value judgement. To mould themselves in the shape of an ideal lawyer. A shape that is, in reality, not necessary to the stated purposes it seeks to fulfill. To do otherwise is to be branded a liability, to be the object of controversy, to have one’s competency and fitness to be a lawyer put under closer scrutiny. But to assimilate in this fashion is to exclude by necessity. Exclude lawyers who intuit differently. Make different assumptions. Have different experiences. And may as a consequence see effective and appropriate advocacy in a different way.

Multilingualism

To solve the problem requires first acknowledging it as a problem, which requires disentangling those norms and conventions that do work in service of the lingua franca’s stated aims, from those that do not. This is a difficult exercise. Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s most famous contribution to class consciousness came from his work in the Notebooks, where he authored the concept of Cultural Hegemony. In short, without boring the reader to death, the ruling class of any community operated by the mass consent of those under its command, rather than merely coercion. That consent was cultivated, rather than organically spawned, through the mechanism of hegemony. The ruling classes used their cultural and institutional power, whether as employers, educators, representatives of the state, or norm entrepreneurs, to engender a specific set of values and norms within its rank and file. A process that was so encompassing and penetrated so deeply into the interior life of every person that at some point it became treated as mere ‘common sense’.[8]

This is ultimately how the lingua franca sustains itself in the legal profession. The vertical dissemination of norms and values – often perpendicular to their stated aims – using institutions of power in order to acculturate fluency in specific sensibilities. Once successful, horizontal enforcement takes over as peers see departures from ‘common sense’ as signs of incompetence and unprofessional behaviour. So how then does such a closed-loop system get broken open? From the top-down and bottom-up.

It requires expanding the frontier of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the unvarnished and coarse terrain of the working class, where true bona fide challenges can be mounted against the prevailing orthodoxy of the profession. It requires an openness to countervailing intuitions and an explicit commitment to permitting them – within reasonable limits – as a matter of firm policy. It requires law schools to thaw the currently chilled environment in its classrooms, where professors are unaware that students are policing each other, writing papers in ways that conform to the professor’s particular ideological commitments, and treating any challenging ‘thought exercises’ done in the classroom, as fun experiments that would in no way be transferable to the ‘real world’. It requires members of the profession to recognize when common sense is being confused with context-sensitive value judgements and assessing their peers with grace and openness rather than scorn and sanction. In short, it requires upward and downward forces to collectively oust the current normativity, which admittedly is much harder said than done, no matter what language you speak.

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[1] Mufwene, Salikoko, “Lingua Franca” (Accessed July 15, 2025), Encyclopedia Britannica, online: https://www.britannica.com/topic/language.

[2] Canagarajah, S., & Ben Said, S. (2011). Linguistic imperialism. In The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 388-400). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203835654.

[3] See: van Besien, Leen. “Plain Language in the Written Law” (2023) Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics Vol. 36, 861-879.

[4] Jennifer Leitch. “Thinking Like a Non-Lawyer: When Plain Language is Not Enough.” (February 20, 2024) Slaw Magazine, online: https://www.slaw.ca/2024/02/20/thinking-like-a-non-lawyer-when-plain-language-is-not-enough/

[5] Rules of Professional Conduct, s. 3.3.

[6] Rules of Professional Conduct, s. 5.1-1.

[7] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. by C K Ogden (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922) at 5.6.

[8] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed & trans by Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971).