What do lawyers mean when they say somebody said something &#39;in terms&#39;? I occasionally see lawyers refer to something somebody else said or wrote, and they often insert, parenthetically, the words 'in terms'. Here is an example to motivate the question. Imagine there is a written report that makes a series of recommendations. A lawyer might say something like: &quot;The report says, in terms, that procedures must be improved at once.&quot; What I am trying to understand is: what does the addition of 'in terms', as a parenthetical, accomplish? Put another way, if the phrase were removed, what confusion or ambiguity would be introduced? One would hope this would be easy to answer with a quick search on Google. But the words &quot;in terms&quot; are so common that it's frustratingly hard. The interesting thing as a layperson is that I could imagine two quite different, and contradictory, meanings. For example, does the insertion of 'in terms' mean &quot;what follows is a paraphrasing&quot;? As in: &quot;The report said words to the effect that procedures should be tightened&quot;? Or might it mean the opposite: &quot;what follows is a verbatim quote&quot;? As in: &quot;The report said, precisely and specifically, that procedures should be tightened&quot;? Finally: note that I'm asking here about the specific case of 'in terms' being used as a parenthetical. I'm not talking about sentences where it appears as 'in terms of' or 'in terms that'.
The report said clearly and directly that procedures must be improved at once, but may not have used the exact words &quot;procedures must be improved at once&quot;. In a legal context, the precise words used by someone can be important, and legal writers may be in the habit of being careful about that detail even in contexts where it is not vital. Often, the writer is trying to summarize a text that is on point, but inconvenient or unnecessary to quote exactly. In R v Brown [1993] UKHL 19, Lord Slynn said, on the topic of consent and BDSM: I agree that in the end it is a matter of policy. It is a matter of policy in an area where social and moral factors are extremely important and where attitudes can change. In my opinion it is a matter of policy for the legislature to decide. Then, the Law Commission report of 1994 on that concept was able to say: Lord Slynn of Hadley said in terms that the ultimate issue was one of policy. While he did not use the precise words &quot;the ultimate issue is one of policy&quot;, he said emphatically that this was a policy issue. Similarly, from In re E (a Child) [2008] UKHL 66, Lord Carswell at paragraph 47 said: The submission advanced by Mr Macdonald QC for the first intervener NIHRC went equally far. He argued in terms that the positive obligation under article 3 was absolute in its nature and that no element of proportionality entered into consideration. He goes on to quote a paragraph from Barry Macdonald's written submission, which does not use the words &quot;obligation&quot;, &quot;absolute&quot;, or &quot;proportionality&quot;, but still makes the stated argument in explicit and forceful language: Likewise, the concept of balance is not in play in that the needs of the community cannot be weighed against the right of an individual not to be subjected to torture or other ill-treatment reaching the threshold. To express the standard of the state’s responsibility in terms of ‘reasonableness’ therefore fails to reflect the categorical imperative created by Article 3. Considerations of reasonableness may operate in deciding whether a proposed measure is available or likely to be effective to stop the ill-treatment in question but not otherwise. In circumstances where the state has it within its power to prevent or stop inhuman or degrading treatment, it must take the measures necessary to do so. The only room for discretion is in determining the most effective means of achieving the object of preventing the ill-treatment. There is no room for opting not to prevent it. We also often have negative phrases like &quot;the statute does not say in terms that...&quot; or &quot;the witness did not concede in terms that...&quot;. These mean that whatever was said, was not said in an express and obvious way (but perhaps there is still something that can be concluded by implication).
One does not introduce statutes in a trial, criminal of civil. Rather, one introduces facts. The judge will present &quot;the law&quot;, and will present it in a digested form in the form of interpreted instructions to the jury about what the law says. Jurors are not required to interpret the meaning of statutes, because jurors are also not expected to know the relevant case law surrounding a statute. A party might make a motion to the judge where the argument depends in part on the wording of a statute. Then there is a standard but jurisdiction-dependent way of referring to s statute, e.g. ORS 164.015, RCW 9A.56.010. For Minnesota there are three interchangeable forms: &quot;Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 123.45, subdivision 6&quot; which is the same as &quot;MINN. STAT. 123.45 (2008)&quot; or &quot;MINN. STAT. ANN. 123.45 (2008)&quot;, which is for statutes. You have to look it up on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis – here is the answer that Minnesota gives (all legal citations).
A promise that a court would not enforce by injunction can still be valid consideration and be part of a valid contract. Failure to carry out such obligations would lead to some measure of money damages, most likely. On the other hand, provisions specifically barred by law, or against public policy, such as a promise to commit a crime, are void from the start, and form no part of a valid contract. Such provisions may be treated by a court as if they had just been left out, or if they were essential to the contract, or formed the sole consideration, the whole contract might be considered void. If a term is too vague for a court to determine if it has been violated or not, the court may try to clarify it, or may just ignore it. Just what it would mean for a tenant to "undermine the leadership" of a landlord is not clear to me, at least. That might well be held to be "too vague". As to "not complain" it may be that a tenant has a legal right to make official complaints, which cannot be waived by contract. Or it may not, depending on the local laws.
The general rule is, anything is allowed unless it is forbidden (and not that you can only do things that are expressly permitted). The logical structure of law may be a bit more challenging than procedural programming logic, since it may require a global knowledge and evaluation of the entire code (typically but not absolutely, the scope of the search for "unless otherwise" conditions is restricted to "in this chapter"). In other words, the law is a set of propositions which must all be true, and unlike actual execution of instructions in a sequence, law is to be interpreted simultaneously but hierarchically (that is: the order in which clauses are written is not significant). The appearance that the law is self-contradictory is largely illusory, though the resolution of the conflict may require a careful reading of the law and knowledge of jurisdictional hierarchy (federal law is superior to state law, which entails a particular resolution of the apparent conflict). Sometimes there are real conflicts, which usually result from using words in conflicting ways (note the practice of re-defining words "in this chapter/section/title"). The reason why law is not a science is that law is normative, not descriptive: it dictates what is allowed (a determination made through the political process), and does not attempt to discover what independently is. The reason why the legal process cannot be implemented in software is that software does not yet correctly interpret natural language, and law is written in natural language following interpretations based on judgments of what choices a reasonable would make. Perhaps if you propose a piece of law that you think is contradictory, it would be possible to show how the contradiction is illusory.
If a contract sometimes uses the wrong name, is it still valid? Yes. It is valid as long as the contract as a whole permits identifying the parties (unequivocally) and ascertaining their role with respect to the contract. Using "Contractor" and "Consultant" interchangeably despite only the former being explicitly defined seems a bit sloppy, but it does not by itself alter or invalidate the meaning of the contract. The excerpt you reproduce is self-explanatory. Its first sentence identifies the parties, and there are only two. Thus, there is no reasonable way to dispute that the second sentence means "Contractor shall indemnify Company", since a clause of the sort "he will indemnify himself" makes no sense. Moreover, the legal definitions of Indemnitor and Indemnitee (Black's Law Dictionary) clearly make reference to "the person" (who protects or is protected, accordingly) and "the other" (that is, not to self).
This is not legal advice, It is not even primarily a legal opinion. It is a legal position. The lawyer, acting on behalf of the agency from which you requested information, is giving the reasons why that agency is declining your request. The lawyer is presumably either an employee of the agency, or has the agency as a client. In any case, this is notice of the position that the agency would be likely to adopt if you took further legal action, such as a suit to compel disclosure. Lawyers provide such position statements ion behalf of clients or employers all the time. Such statements indicate why certain action is taken, what basis the client or employer has for taking or not taking certain action, and often indicate the nature of the defenses or theories that will be used should a lawsuit follow, although the client or employer is free to change the theory at the pleading stage. Not only is it not unethical for the lawyer to respond in this way, the agency is, I am fairly sure, required by the law to provide a valid reason when a request is declined. That is what they have done, provide a reason that they claim is valid, with some legal reasoning about why it is valid. Note that I express no view on whether the reason given is in fact valid, or would be sustained in a suit. That would be a different question.
It's no fantastic legal source, and rules may vary in different countries, but from the Wikipedia article on Attorney client privilege: Lawyers may also breach the duty where they are defending themselves against disciplinary or legal proceedings. A client who initiates proceedings against a lawyer effectively waives rights to confidentiality. This is justified on grounds of procedural fairness—a lawyer unable to reveal information relating to the retainer would be unable to defend themselves against such action. In other words, if the client's lie is related to one of the lawyer's interests (for example, if the client sues the attorney for malpractice based on the advice he was given), the lawyer can break privilege on his own behalf, thus testifying that his client lied. As to the specific case you brought up, I would say that privilege wouldn't protect the client from the lawyer discussing things never brought up. In other words, we could force the attorney to testify, since one of two things is true: The attorney really did give him that advice, in which case the client has already voluntarily given up his right to confidentiality by describing what was said between them, or The lawyer never gave him that advice, and privilege wouldn't protect a conversation between the two that never transpired.
First, the relevant term is "precedent". You have misstated the nature of "precedent". Precedent is simply the addition of further information about what the law is. A legislature may set forth a law that say "If A, then (if you B, you will suffer consequence C)". But it is not self-evident in a given instance whether A is true, or B is true, or what exactly C refers to. In addition, law is an integrated system, so Law #39 may seem to contradict Law #12: does that mean that Law #39 doesn't apply, or is it that Law #12 (if #12 is a Constitutional provision, #39 is just wrong – laws exist in a hierarchy). Therefore, laws must be interpreted. "Precedent" refers to the creation of a rule of interpretation, one which is logically consistent with existing rules of interpretation (which are arranged in some logical hierarchy). If the Supreme Court establishes a rule that laws penalizing "hate speech" contradict the First Amendment (R.A.V v. St Paul) and therefore cannot be a law in the US, then any similar law is, by rule, also not actually a law. Creation of precedent itself follows rules, though ones that are harder to discern – this is what "jurisprudence" is about. For example, some justices believe that they should appeal to an inherent feeling of justice; others believe that a law should be interpreted according to perceived legislative intent; still others focus on the wording of the legal text (statute, usually). This does not involve appeal to popular sentiment. It does mean (usually) that law is seen to be a system of rules, and not case-by-case feelings.