This book has taken me quite some time to write, and I consequently owe debts of gratitude to the many people who have helped me along the way. The book was largely conceived during my research at the University of California, Davis. I would like to thank my mentors, Ra?l Aranovich, Patrick Farrell, Almerindo Ojeda, Adam Sennet, and Lawrence Solan. Ra?l Aranovich has been particularly helpful and encouraging, as well as insightful and rigorous. Others at Davis have similarly been invaluable in helping me develop the ideas in this book, including Robert May and Michael Glanzberg. I have also benefited from presenting portions of the book at various universities and conferences. Among them are the “Legal Rules” conference organized by the Department of Legal Theory at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, “The Pragmatic Turn” conference at the University of British Columbia, and the Eleventh Biennial Conference on Forensic Linguistics/Language and Law held at the Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de México, Mexico City. In addition, the annual West Coast Roundtable on Language and Law has given me multiple opportunities to present my ideas to an impressive collection of experts on language and the law.