Via Reuters:
Henry Campbell Black had never intended – or even imagined – that his dictionary would become the authoritative source for legal terminology. “My great granddad had actually written the text for an upcoming firm skit night”, Medhurst explains. “It was his way of showing how convoluted and, well, pompous the legal profession had become.” The dictionary became an instant hit, however, and Henry Black’s comedic intentions went unnoticed. When the money started to roll in, Black elected to pursue a highly lucrative career in legal publishing instead of becoming a marginally talented prop comic.
When asked why the family is revealing the fake after all this time, Medhurst stated that they had grown tired of living a lie, and were genuinely concerned that the universally accepted legal lexicon “is actually just a bunch of made-up gibberish.”
So the legal profession is just a joke. I suspected as much.
For some reason, the release of this story disturbs me. Who posted it? Reuters has NO record of this story. In the back of Black’s Law Dictionary is an enormous list of attorneys, scholars, and justices who contributed to it. It was never claimed to have been written by the family itself. This story seems to be a fabrication, but why? I haven’t seen anything to the contrary, and as we know, perception equals reality. Who has anything to gain from fabricating this story?