ABSTRACT
Legal studies also play a significant role in the formation of professional identity
(Nystrom, 2010), which is why this stage is perceived by the profession – which
seeks to influence its content – to be so important by the profession (Abel, 1988a).
Indeed, this is the beginning of the melting pot (see Yaar, 2007, p. 72) and part of
the process of shaping the identity of jurists according to the general codes in which
the profession is interested, including the learning of new tools and, no less important,
of a new language and terminology that contain much ceremony – the language of the
law (Barzilai, 2007). As noted above, the legal profession is like a state; the state also
has a language that it seeks to impose on its citizens. If citizens who speak foreign
languages arrive in the country, the state loses an important unifying indicator.
Indeed, one of the criticisms being voiced against part of the newcomers to the pro-
fession, aimed primarily at students of the law colleges, is that their language is
slurred. Language is no doubt part of the professional’s socialization process – of
creating a lawyer (Mertz, 2007). And the responsibility is placed upon the institutions
that accept and qualify them, those mediators, the legal training institutions – that is,
the colleges. When there was a tacit understanding between the profession and the
universities about the desired model of future jurists, no problems arose.
Nevertheless, the rules of the game changed with the entrance of the colleges into
the arena. As Professor Ron Shapira noted,
