Professor Solan holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and his scholarly works are devoted to exploring interdisciplinary issues related to language and law. He is director of the Law School's Center for the Study of Law, Language and Cognition. Professor Solan's highly acclaimed book, The Language of Judges (1993), is widely recognized as the seminal work on linguistic theory and legal argumentation. His latest book, Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice, coauthored with Loyola Law School Professor Peter Tiersma was published by the University of Chicago Press in early 2005. He has also authored numerous chapters and articles on language and the law, including those published in the Georgetown Law Journal, William and Mary Law Review, Texas Law Review, Law & Contemporary Problems, and Law & Social Inquiry. He regularly lectures in this country and abroad on language and the law, statutory and contractual interpretation, and linguistic evidence. He has been a Visiting Professor in the Linguistics Program, and a Visiting Fellow in the Psychology Department, at Princeton University, and a Visiting Professor at Yale Law School. Prior to joining the faculty in 1996, Professor Solan was a partner in the firm of Orans, Elsen and Lupert, where he specialized in complex civil litigation, and he also was a Law Clerk to Justice Stewart Pollock of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. He has served as president of the International Association of Forensic Linguistics, is on the board of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health, and is on the editorial board of The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law.
Articles
False Consensus Bias in Contract Interpreation (with Terri Rosenblatt and Daniel Osherson), 108 Columbia L. Rev. 1268 (2008)
Psychologists call the propensity to believe that one’s views are the normal views even when...