Objection, Your Honor! Overruled! Sustained! Rephrase the question! The defense rests… These and many other similar phrases are almost staple features in any law-related and lawyer movies or series, as the CASE may be. Why? They are catchy. They sound intriguing. They arouse emotions. And there is just something about them which recalls the air of seriousness and aloofness about the institution — and justice. Every legal language boasts such beauties, and you don’t necessarily need to be in the legal profession to know and recognize such terms since they are just… omnipresent. The real problem starts when one begins to analyze their true meaning, their use, and translatability into another language and legal system. This is where you truly begin climbing the steep stairs of spiral legal stairCASES.

The book which you hold in your hands is not a manual on how to mount those stairs but rather a guide on how to use small steps in examining the language of authentic legal CASES and documents taken directly from legal offices and courtrooms. It aims at discovering both possibilities and impossibilities of equivalency between common and civil law, and at showing how to navigate the meanders of legal texts to catch the slightest nuances of their meaning and use.

Everything you find here comes from credible Polish and English sources, authentic
legal problems, and factual situations that were documented through properly anonymized paperwork and adapted for learning and teaching purposes. For us this book was a pleasure to write, a challenge to face, and a fantastic adventure to embark on; here’s hoping that for you, dear reader, it will prove just as pleasurable, challenging, and adventurous.