Olivia Bullock

speaker

283 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2026 last heard 25 Mar

Olivia Bullock’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 2.

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The Last Show with David Cooper · Legal Jargon in Court Means More Guilty Verdicts · 25 Mar 2026 podcast

So you have a situation where people are confused, they need help the most, but they're the least likely to actually ask the questions because of the negative effects of jargon.

In the U.S., there's been a movement called the plain language movement that is really focused on jury instructions.

But what I'm arguing here is that the need to make things more straightforward doesn't just conclude when jury instructions are given and then the case moves on and then nothing else from there has to be plain language after that.

What I'm arguing is that if, again, the goal is for impartiality and fairness, then doing things like defining a

complicated terms giving members of the jury a glossary of terms that they might hear during an expert witness cross-examination providing plain language summaries of the expert witnesses testimonies or of you know the testimonies that people hear and really providing more of an opportunity for jurors to ask questions as well is another way to kind of mitigate those negative effects i think this is a solvable problem we just need to go a little bit further than we currently are

Of course.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

The Last Show with David Cooper · FULL EPISODE: Risk Your Life For Fish - March 24, 2026 · 25 Mar 2026 podcast

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So the idea for this study came because I was actually watching Forensic Files, like the late night TV show that's all about crime drama.

I was watching it and I realized that there is a ton of jargon that's present when we talk about legal proceedings.

I usually study jargon in health and science context, so I hadn't thought about it in the context of the legal system.

But when I was watching forensic files, I realized there's people in a trial proceeding who are really, really familiar with the terminology being used.

And you refer to like Latin and we think of like mens rea ad hominem, you know.

There's eminent domain.

There's people who are really familiar with that language, like the lawyers on the cases, the judges, the expert witnesses.

And then there are the people in the room who this might be their first time ever hearing words like that before, members of the jury and even the defendant themselves.

And I found myself really curious about what that knowledge gap or that familiarity gap might be doing for people who are actually trying to take part in legal proceedings.

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