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How Do You Feel about the "N-word?"

By Lynne DeVenny

I was intrigued by Nancy Byerly Jones? recent blog post at LawBusinessTips, ?My Personal Crusade to Cease All Use of the Word ?Non-Lawyer!?? And maybe I was a little embarrassed because I?ve thrown the ?N-word? around quite a bit in over 20 years of working as a paralegal without thinking about it much (or at all).

A former paralegal and law office manager who earned her law degree, Byerly Jones considers the word to be ?disrespectful?, especially when used in a derogatory manner. I have to admit that I pumped my fist in the air and yelled, ?Woot, woot!? when she said of her pre-law degree days, ?In those times I learned that more than a few attorneys treated support staff disrespectfully and like second class citizens.? (This took me back to early days in my career when the attorneys at one large firm where I worked as a legal secretary had separate firm social functions that always excluded, yes, all ?non-lawyers?. To be honest, the in-house caste system was so bad that paralegals and legal secretaries even had separate functions.)

And I have to agree that we don?t label physician assistants, nurses, respiratory therapists and phlebotomists as ?non-doctors?, or veterinary nurses, lab technicians, dog walkers and groomers as ?non-vets?. So why in the world are we the only profession that calls people in the legal industry who don?t have law degrees ?non-lawyers?? Is it a little like calling ourselves ?non-professionals?, or even worse, labeling ourselves ?not as valuable??

Maybe Shakespeare was right and the issue is silly. ?"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But maybe he?s wrong, and casually throwing around the label ?non-lawyer? instead of the correct job title stinks.

The term ?non-lawyer? does not accord the many well-educated and experienced legal professionals without law degrees that are essential to the practice of law ? legal secretaries, law librarians, IT specialists, investigators, law office managers, court reporters, legal marketers, videographers and paralegals to name a few ? the appropriate recognition or respect that they deserve for their unique skills and training, and invaluable contributions to the legal field.

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on July 06, 2009 (boomark / email).