Law Slang, Jargon, and New Words from Double-Tongued Dictionary

Law, courts, legal matters, etc. You can also see entries assigned to this category.

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diesel therapy n. Transit, better known as “diesel therapy” to the feds, is maybe the worst part of being incarcerated. Imagine being handcuffed with a chain around your waist securing the handcuffs to your stomach area. You can’t move your arms up and down or side to side. Your feet are shackled, limiting you to baby steps. Now get on a bus. [ Language English Subject Crime & Prisons Law] [full cite] (Oct. 19, 2005)

diesel therapy n. With lower profile witnesses in lower profile cases, frankly, I wouldn’t put a little “diesel therapy,” as it’s called, past the prosecutors. But here, the almost comically excessive nature of the journey made is so ham-fisted, so blatant, and so unlikely to work on a proud, savvy short-termer like Fawell, prosecutors would have been idiots to order it up. [ Language English Subject Crime & Prisons Law] [full cite] (Oct. 20, 2005)

Dionne Warwick n. If someone has had “a Dionne Warwick,” the listener should definitely try to be sympathetic as they have had a heart-breaking event. Warwick was famed for having written and sung Heartbreaker. [English United Kingdom Law Slang] [full cite] (Jul. 15, 2007)

dog leg n. Following the anticipated repeal of article 56, the potential liability of the directors of a Jersey PTC will not be assessed and determined in accordance with general principles. In Jersey, as elsewhere, it will therefore be appropriate for directors to be aware of the possibility of being found liable for dishonestly assisting a PTC to commit a breach of trust or, alternatively, of being found indirectly liable to beneficiaries under what is known as the “dog leg” claim. [English Law] [full cite] (Oct. 15, 2006)

drilldown n. The glossary states a drilldown is a “conversation with a verbose barrister requiring seven action points with no writing implement available resulting in communication breakdown, information loss and night sweats.” [English United Kingdom Law Slang] [full cite] (Jul. 15, 2007)

driller n. Driller: loud ringing phone. [English United Kingdom Law Slang] [full cite] (Jul. 15, 2007)

drying rock n. At a stakeholders meeting convened Wednesday by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative at the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis, many of the experts heard a new phrase for the first time: “drying rocks.” It was Arthur Pugsley, an environmental analyst with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office, who described the features as “rocks that poke above mean low water” that are used in determining boundaries under an international treaty. [English United States Law Politics Jargon] [full cite] (Jun. 4, 2004)

drying rock n. Terminologically: the “drying rocks,” “shoals” and “rocks awash” formerly spoken of have given way to “low-tide elevations,” just as in French the «sèches», «fonds affleurants» and «fonds couvrants et découvrants» have given way to «hauts-fonds découvrants». The terminology is now settled. Consequently, we can only regret that from time to time our opponents continue to have recourse to out-of-date terms no longer recognized in international law.… Conceptually, today we know precisely what a low-tide elevation is. A low-tide elevation is defined in Article 13 of the 1982 Convention, to which the two Parties ascribe customary force, as “a naturally formed area of land which is surrounded by and above water at low tide but submerged at high tide.” [English Law Jargon] [full cite] (Jun. 5, 2004)

drying rock n. The Court referred there to the case of a “low-tide elevation (drying rock)"…without adopting a position on whether, and in what circumstances, such a feature might be taken into account as a basepoint for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea.…The first reports of the International Law Commission reveal significant terminological and conceptual variations, both in English and in French.…The terminology accepted today—“low-tide elevations,” “hauts-fonds découvrants"—was first established at the Geneva Conference of 1958. [English Law Jargon] [full cite] (Jun. 5, 2004)

dummy defense n. The Enron Corp. trial opening Jan. 30 in Houston is shaping up to be the biggest test yet of the so-called idiot defense.…No chief executive “knows everything going on in his company,” Lay said in one of his speeches, so no one should expect him to take responsibility for the crimes of an executive he portrays as Enron’s chief villain. “I did not know what he was doing."…It’s…also known as the “dummy” or “ostrich” defense. [ Language English Subject Law] [full cite] (Jan. 5, 2006)

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