BYU Law Welcomes Retiring Utah Supreme Court Justice Thomas Lee as Visiting Professor, Linguistics Expert Jesse Egbert as Research Associate for 2022-23

Visiting Faculty to Further the Law School's Corpus Linguistics Curriculum and Research

PROVO, Utah, July 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- BYU Law, a global law school focused on leadership in legal theory and practice, today announced retiring Utah Supreme Court Justice Thomas R. Lee will join the law school as a visiting professor and Jesse Egbert will join as visiting research associate for the 2022-23 academic year. The visiting faculty will focus on furthering BYU Law's corpus linguistics curriculum and research. Corpus linguistics is a methodology for understanding the meaning of words by analyzing naturally occurring language in large collections of texts called "corpora." This methodology is at the precipice of more mainstream use as practitioners and judges, including the U.S. Supreme Court, gain understanding of its potential to impact modern-day cases.

"We are honored to have Justice Lee and Professor Egbert, two of the foremost experts in the application of corpus linguistics to legal interpretation, join BYU Law in our efforts to help judges, professors and legal practitioners better understand its potential effect on meaningful work," said BYU Law Dean Gordon Smith. "BYU Law is a pioneer in the study of law and corpus linguistics as the first law school in the United States to offer a course on the topic, the first to host an annual corpus linguistics conference, and the first to develop a dedicated Law and Corpus Linguistics Technology Platform. And while strides have been made, there is much more work to be done."

Judge Lee will teach a Supreme Court Seminar and the first-year Legislation and Regulation course. During his time at BYU Law, Professor Egbert plans to work to make the Corpus of the U.S. State Statutes freely available through integration into the BYU Law online corpus platform interface, explore how linguistics can inform and possibly refine the linguistic canons of construction, as well as develop standards and best practices for applying corpus linguistics to legal questions.

Lee, who served as associate chief justice on the Utah Supreme Court for 12 years, is considered an innovator in law and linguistics; his judicial opinions and scholarship advocate the use of theories and tools used by linguists to interpret the language of the law. Through theories and tools of corpus linguistics, Lee has sought to bring rigor and precision to the law's search for the "ordinary meaning" of the words of statutes and regulations. See Judging Ordinary Meaning, 127 YALE L. J. 788 (2018); The Corpus and the Critics, 88 U. CHI. L. REV. 275 (2021) (both co-authored with Stephen Mouritsen).

Lee has also written in defense of originalism. His work also proposes to use the theories and tools of corpus linguistics to bring more rigor to originalist practice. See Data-Driven Originalism, 167 PENN. L. REV. 261 (2019) (co-authored with James Phillips).

He received a bachelor's degree in economics from Brigham Young University and his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago. Before his appointment to the bench, Lee was a full-time professor at BYU as well as a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Law School at the University of Chicago. He also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He has presented on law and linguistics at numerous conferences, symposia and workshops. In making the move to private practice, Lee is seeking to cement the practical applications of his academic and judicial work.

Prior to joining BYU Law as a visiting research associate, Jesse Egbert was a full-time assistant professor of applied linguistics at Northern Arizona University. He specializes in the use of corpus linguistics methods to explore patterns of language variation across registers of academic prose and the internet. Much of his work has focused on the improvement of quantitative linguistic research methods. Egbert co-authored a paper titled, "A Corpus Linguistic Analysis of 'Foreign Tribunal,'" published by the Virginia Law Review in May 2022. He has also published follow-up commentary, including "Corpus Linguistics in the Supreme Court," which notes some of the Supreme Court's past use of and references to the underlying data available in corpora.

Why is Corpus Linguistics Poised for Growth?
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court held oral arguments in ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshre, LTD, a case involving the issue of whether a private arbitration panel is covered by the statutory phrase "foreign or international tribunal." At its core, the case hinged on a linguistic question: what did the term "foreign tribunal" mean in 1964? During the oral arguments, the justices discussed a paper, co-authored by Egbert, that summarized the corpus linguistics analysis performed to see how the term "foreign tribunal" was used around the time it was inserted into the statutory provision at issue. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett also debated the court's past use of corpus linguistics, with petitioners' counsel defending the methodology. While the Supreme Court's opinion did not ultimately reference corpus linguistics, the case was a step forward for corpus linguistics because it was cited and discussed in the briefing and oral argument.

As more judges and attorneys begin to understand how corpus linguistics methodology can be applied in today's legal practices, there is increased demand for training on the tools and technology available to them. Prior to COVID-necessitated travel restrictions, BYU Law had planned a series of in-person workshops and programs to train federal and state judges, clerks and attorneys on the discipline. The visiting faculty appointments will enable BYU Law to continue to educate their own students about corpus linguistics, while broadening industry outreach and training.

About BYU Law School
Founded in 1971 with its inaugural class in 1973, the J. Reuben Clark Law School (BYU Law) has grown into one of the nation's leading law schools – recognized for innovative research and teaching in social change, transactional design, entrepreneurship, corpus linguistics, criminal justice and religious freedom. The Law School has more than 6,000 alumni serving in communities around the world. In its most recent rankings, National Jurist recognized BYU Law as the #1 best-value law school in its 2021 ranking. BYU Law also earned its highest U.S. news ranking to date, coming in at No. 23 in the U.S. News 2023 Best Graduate School rankings. For more information, visit https://law.byu.edu. 

SOURCE BYU Law