lawyer up antedating 1995-->1990 (UNCLASSIFIED)

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Feb 2 15:50:59 UTC 2010


Does _lawyer up_ seems have two senses?  The most current one is "to secure
legal counsel."  An earlier one seems to be, "begin to conduct oneself as
though a lawyer, as by giving ambiguous or evasive answers."

Or possibly I just misunderstand the context of some early exx.

JL
On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 9:10 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: lawyer up antedating 1995-->1990 (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I had a chance to check legal citations in Lexis, but I only did a
> search from 1985 to 1995. It appears the first case that uses "lawyer
> up"--and even then only in quoting a policeman's comment--is the one I
> cited earlier from the 2nd Circuit (NY) in 1994. I did not have a
> chance to do a periodical search on Lexis or Westlaw, but I'll check
> at another time.
>
> VS-)
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
> <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> >>> I hope the other reference pans out (MJS 1993).
> >
> > It appears as Victor posted it in Newsbank.
>
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