Innovation Credit: areebarbar / stock.adobe.com

Two Centurions Walk into The Bar

Let's be honest. When you think about innovators, lawyers are probably not the first people that jump to mind. Technology, medical, finance and many other professionals likely make the list well before a group trained to pay homage to precedent, prudence, caution and risk avoidance.

But are lawyers actually tireless anti-innovation upholders of the status quo? Or is the notion that they are blind adherents to time-worn Latin phrases like de jure and stare decisis simply wrong, or as Blackstone might say, malum in se?

Clearly, nothing screams innovation like using obscure phrases from a language that marks its decline with the fall of the Roman Empire. But is it time to analyze this issue de novo? Sua sponte? Or, dare we say, sui generis?