In an ever-more competitive and shrinking global market, attorneys who are conversant in more than one language will have a distinct advantage. They will simultaneously increase their communication skills and gain access to a culture and a way of thinking which will enhance their understanding of another legal system as well as broaden their perspective of their own.
This book consists of dialogues, grammar sections and reading passages, all presented in a framework of legal themes. The purpose of this book is to provide sufficient knowledge of French to permit an English-speaking lawyer to communicate effectively with French-speaking clients and to understand references to the European Union and French legal system which might arise in an international law practice at home or in France. The vocabulary translations which follow every dialogue and reading passage and the comprehensive glossaries also make the book appropriate for French-speaking attorneys or law students seeking to learn English in a legal context. For readers familiar with the French language, this book will provide a review of basic grammatical and structural rules, while introducing vocabulary of particular use to lawyers.
Learning French Through the Law is designed to maximize the rapidity of acquiring effective communication skills by teaching simple grammatical structures combined with a sophisticated vocabulary easy to learn and remember because it consists of as many as possible cognates (i.e., French and English legal terms with similar derivations, spelling and sound). This combination of sophisticated legal terms with the rudiments of grammar means that complex concepts can be expressed almost immediately. The method has proved to be highly successful with law students: within weeks, they gain sufficient fluency to articulate ideas which students embarking on a typical course of French instruction would not be able to formulate for several years.
Vivian Grosswald Curran, Attorney; Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh and President of the American Society of Comparative Law.
Professor Grosswald Curran's book shares with that other paragon (Strunk & White, The Elements of Style) the quality of being unusually instructive and entertaining at the same time. Because of these qualities, the book should not only be compulsory reading for all lawyers, but also for non-lawyers. I would have relished learning French from this book and becoming acquainted with the French and common law legal systems at the same time. This book truly has universal appeal. ---the late Hans Smit, Stanley H. Fuld Professor Emeritus of Columbia Law School.
