Legal Know-How for Practicing Law
Welcome to LexTechne!
Let me introduce myself. My name is Joseph L. Vallette. Among other roles, I am an attorney, a workflow consultant and an adjunct computer instructor. As an attorney, I am a wordsmith by profession. I must read and comprehend the words of others, as well as rely upon the use of words, along with the rules of grammar, to clearly articulate my thoughts, ideas and knowledge into a usable and actionable form. Coupled with the richness of language and the art of rhetoric, I use words to advise, persuade, protect, advocate and counsel my clients.
Yet, it was during my roles as a workflow consultant and adjunct computer instructor when I became acutely aware that I was using the same word to express several different concepts. I was using this term to describe someone’s ability to perform a task or a skill; when referring to someone’s comprehension or mastery of a theoretical concept; and when referring to information or data.
The word to which I am referring is “knowledge.” It is a term that one would think is specific. After all everyone knows what knowledge means, don’t they? However, “knowledge” is one of those words that is often over used because its definition tends to have multiple meanings, and as such it is easy for it to become a general catchall term. For example, “knowledge” can be used when referring to facts or information acquired by a person either through education or experience. “Knowledge” can also refer to some ones’ theoretical understanding of a subject, while it can also refer to some ones’ practical understanding of a subject. Additionally, “knowledge” can also be defined as skills acquired through experience or education. Moreover, in some instances, knowledge can be categorize as either tacit or explicit. In that context, tacit knowledge refers to knowledge contained in someones’ head while explicit knowledge refers to knowledge that is codified and/or written down. However, that definition is different from and does not reconcile with another definition whereby implicit knowledge refers to practical skill or expertise and explicit knowledge refers to some ones’ theoretical understanding of a subject. So not only is the word “knowledge” ambiguous, in some instances it can also be contradictory.
For my purposes, “knowledge” alone lacked the requisite specificity to explain its significance in the information age or what has also been referred to as the “knowledge economy.” The inner wordsmith in me struggled with this ambiguity. So I began looking for other words that could be used to differentiate someone’s theoretical knowledge with someone’s technical knowledge or know-how. After almost half a century into the information age, while we are still transitioning from an industrial economy to a knowledge based economy, we have failed to update our vocabulary to clearly express the subtlety that exists between different types of “knowledge.”
Early attempts were made to solve this problem by merely combining the ambiguous and overused concept of “knowledge” with some other industrial age word in order to create new concepts, such as “knowledge economy,” “knowledge enterprise,” “knowledge management,” “knowledge asset,” “knowledge worker,” “knowledge technologist” or “knowledge manager” without clearly defining what these new concepts. The problem with this approach, is that even though “knowledge” is a noun, many are using it as an adjective and subject to one’s own interpretation of the word, resulting in confusion as to the definition of these new concepts.
In an attempt to better identify the subtle differences in the word “knowledge,” it is necessary to look to the subject of philosophy, specifically the branch known as epistemology (the study of knowledge). In so doing, we first look to ancient Greece, around the time of Aristotle and Plato. The ancient Greeks distinguished three types of knowledge, identified by the words episteme (to know), techne (know-how) and phronesis (practical wisdom). When it comes to the practice of law, episteme refers to the theoretical knowledge that one obtains in law school and one continues to acquire throughout ones career through research and experience. Techne, on the other hand, refers to know-how skills or “technical knowledge.” The “knowledge” necessary to produce and process the theoretical into the practical, specifically, the type of “knowledge” needed to do one’s job, perform a task or hone a skill.
Philosophers in Greek antiquity already addressed questions related to the making of things. The terms “technique” and “technology” have their roots in the ancient Greek notion of “techne” (art, or craft-knowledge), that is, the body of knowledge associated with a particular practice of making . . . . Originally the term referred to a carpenter’s craft-knowledge about how to make objects from wood . . . , but later it was extended to include all sorts of craftsmanship, such as the ship’s captain’s techne of piloting a ship, the musician’s techne of playing a particular kind of instrument, the farmer’s techne of working the land, the statesman’s techne of governing a state or polis, or the physician’s techne of healing patients . . . .
LexTechne, is a combination of the words Lex, from Latin for Law, and Techne (the plural Technai), from Greek for skill or craftsmanship, the knowledge, or more specifically the know-how skills needed to make, do or create something. It is a neologism, coined to identify the practical know-how skills that are necessary to process, produce and practice law.
Generally, the ancient Greek word “techne” is translated as “craft” or “art” but also “knowledge”. Of these definitions, “knowledge” seems best. “Craft” places emphasis on the finished product of an artisan or craftsman where techne really implies the knowledge by which those products were created. The same could be said for “art”. However, just plain “knowledge” does not suffice because it applies to other terms such as episteme. While sometimes used interchangeably, episteme means “scientific knowledge” and techne means “technical knowledge”. Where episteme may be “knowledge for the sake of knowledge”, techne is instrumental or oriented towards the deliberate production of something.
Techne, Technology and Tragedy
David E. Tabachnick
Nipissing University
Therefore, in the interest of clarity, LexTechne (and the plural LexTechnai) were coined, so that readers will recognize from the outset, that the focus of this website and blog will be about legal know-how skills. LexTechne.com will focus on the skills required to convert a lawyer’s theoretical knowledge (episteme) into usable and accessible information, so that it is actionable, salable and profitable.
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