Being a Jurist Is Screaming in the Void

Contracts don’t need soul. You do.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

I’m a jurist, a writer and editor. Which means I spend most of my time writing and editing. Yet every part of my day feels completely different.

Legal documents being legal documents, nobody will read them. I'm screaming in the void, but screaming with precision, with care, with expertise. I’m a prefessional void screamer and it’s somewhat enjoyable to fine tune a document to make it 100% safe for people who don’t think about what could go wrong.

I don’t care that people read the documents. The people I work for don’t either. Their very existence is enough to protect people from invisible danger. I’m not judged upon how many people will read the contracts or legal disclosures. I’m only judged upon the happening and precision of said things.

The prose could be horrible and it wouldn’t be a problem. The storytelling is absent, and it’s not a problem. Writing a legal document isn’t writing in a writer’s sense. It’s building something that is supposed to hold up. The means aren’t important.

A jurist could even cut the writing part. He could spend his time editing. Or use an AI. Authorship is not an issue.

I’ve drafted more articles of incorporation than I can count, and I’ve used templates written by unknown jurists. Borrowing isn’t a problem. We do not sign our legal creation like artists, we just build things using scrapes other made to make sure the client’s happy and stays happy.

Writing online is different. Precision is out of the question. I’ve made mistakes but it was never held against me. I’ve been boosted on several occurences with objectively flawed texts.

Mathematical precision is not what people look for in writing. It’s about connection. It’s about catching the “hey, I’ve been there” moment.

Being a jurist implies that you stay hidden. You need to suppress style in favor of function. It’s about technicalities, not technique. The medium has to be neutral too.

“A good jurist is, above all, a cultivated person”.

That’s what a professor told me in law school. And I see where it comes from. It’s mainly a matter of social skills. A jurist looks like something. There’s an expected aesthetic for a jurist, which follows the lawyer’s.

Sophistication gets you a job. It builds reputation and signals expertise. But my literary knowledge is the last thing I ever use.

An online writer is the polar opposite. I could be a nobody with no credentials, writing from a basement in my underwear, and none of it would matter as long as I make you feel something. And essentially, regarding anything but legal work and book reviewing, I very much am a nobody. And it doesn’t matter.

In the writer’s world, the reader holds all the power. They owe you nothing. And because my texts are useless in the technical sense, all that matters is that I can retain your attention and feeling long enough.

I think we don’t mind that legal texts are being eaten by AI.

In Casares’ novel The Invention of Morel, there is this idea that identity is unique, and that a reproduction of a living being destroys the original. In my conversation wit Ada Hoffmann about her last book “Ignore all Previous Instructions”, the core of every discussion about what people believe AI lacks is the Soul.

The fact that we are bothered that AI eats art but don’t seem too ethically concerned with AI becoming a super-jurist is that we all know that technical documents don’t have soul.

It might be some sort of moral compass. If one isn’t bothered by AI eating some text, it might be an indication that said text is void of emotion. Or even alienating.

I won’t go further on this specific point, I don’t think it’s up to me to decide if a job is alienating or not. There’s far worse than being a corporate jurist.

My point is that I live in both worlds, and that tension is precisely what makes me care about the difference. Because I live in this dual perspective, because I know what it’s like to scream in the void, I’m all the more cautious to deliver text that feels engaging, here on Medium or on The Phrasemaker.

It’s also why I’m sensitive about AI. Why I don’t mind unfiltered texts, flawed prose. This is why I never seek perfection as an editor. Why grammar is, on some occasions, the least of my concerns.

I’d rather have a typo than a soulless sentence. I’d rather be a nobody who makes you feel something than a professional who builds invisible walls. The void doesn’t need me to care. You do.

Thank you for reading, for being here, and for all of those who clap, repost, comment, engage, email me, argue with me, or stay silent but present.