Letters to a Young Lawyer - Forgotten Books

Comment . 1 9 1 2 . BY Wm PUBLxsmNG Co.

Publish ed . November. 1912

LETTERS TO A YOUNG LAWYER

I LLUSTRA T ION

Br Ln Woonwum Z uzan a

THERE WA S BEN DRI' ING BY IN H IS LITTLE OLDRIC' ETY WAGON , WITH THE TRUN' . AND ON THE

SEAT BE SIDE H IM WA S THE OFFICE BOY THATWOR'ED FOR LAWYER BLOOM.

'

A PERSONAL NOTE

DEAR BOY

One of your friends told me theother day that you are collecting inbook form some of the random epistles your daddy wrote you in the period of your legal incubation . Well

,

I trust that youwill not be foundtoo presumptuous in supposing thatyoung lawyers generally will value asmuch as you seem to those discursivedisquisitions of mine .

Perhaps the letters should havedealt technically with some of thegreat principles of law and practice .

On second thought, however, it was

fit, I think, to say what I have said ;to speak of the things Of remembrance -my adventures in the lawleaving the strong meat Of the word


w ithin the calf—bound covers whichfill your Office shelves .You are beginning to practice, my

boy, in times critical for your profession. The economic restlessness,which expresses itself in the advocacyof revolutionary changes in generallegislation beats every day more violently against the time-worn doors ofthe ancient temple of the law ; beneath the seat of Justice there is theincreasing roar of popular discontent—a complaint in part just

,in greater

part but the incitement of dema

goguery. Lovers of real progress ex

pect you, as a lawyer, to be broadwithout beingundyked and wise with.Out guile, conscientiously and fear

lessly seeking the essential truth beneath, and by your lips and your l ife

preserving the fruit and flower of the


long centuries Of the common law .

I f in the letters you can discern thefeatures of this kind Of a lawyer, myportraiture will not have been in vain .

I have personally Often admonishedyou not to worship the clay-footedidol of Success ; the kind of success

,

I mean, which is simply the multiplication Of inches of dollars . In mywritten words youwill find no secretfor making big money in your profession ; big money, that is, whichcannot be made without big moralrisk but

,rather

,the success which I

have preached to youas worthy is thekind which enables youwith fine inward calm to look unshrinkingly into the searching eye of To—morrow .

YOUR FATH ER .

Letters to a younglawyer

LETTER I

OUR mother and Peg

gy are leaving here in

a few days to attend

your graduation ex er

cises. I am sorry thatI cannot accompany them

,but Mar

tin’s case will be heard in the federalcourt on that date, and postponementis almost impossible . Youwill re

member that is the case which youassisted me in briefing last winter .

Youlabored nobly for the success Ofthe cause, but I found on looking overyour citations that some Of them boreas much relationship to the actual issue in this case as a pair of handcuffs

[ 1 5 ]


do to a finger ring. I am not scolding. I want you to feel on your gradnation from law school that yourlegal education in many respects isbut beginning

,instead of being com

pleted. Remember,son, it takes a

bricklayer five years to get his master ’s ticket, and I don

’t want you tothink that three years in a law schoolsuffices to master either the techniqueor the theory Of the law .

I am not attempting to disparagethe law school . I think, on the whole,it has been an advantage for you toattend one . When I finished the A .

B . course at Hotchkins— now somefew years ago— there was no lawschool for me to graduate to ; in fact,at that time, there were but one or two

law schools in the United States, and

their courses were brief and pretty

[ 16 ]


crude . Those were the days whenmany of the Old-time lawyers werew riting their pleadings in longhand.

A man then could not sit down andrattle Ofl‘ a complaint on the typewriter, or recline in a swivel chair and dictate his pleadings to a stenographer .Still, the old system had its advantages and its triumphs, and some

grand men honored and adorned it .I am glad that you were able to

attend law school ; but, for all that, Idon’t want youto come away with theidea that you are infinitely superior tothe office-bred lawyer . By an Office

bred lawyer,I mean one who goes to

work in a law office and does h is

studying under the direction of h is

employer . Broadly speaking, this is

still the English method Of making

lawyers,and you know that the courts

2 [ 1 7 ]


of this country lend a very willing andattentive ear to the decisions of the

menwho are made under this system .

In England, a young man is articled

to a solicitor for a number of years,usually five. He employs himself inthe Office

,reads law as prescribed, and

takes periodic examinations given by

the local bar association— usually a

county institution . The practical andimmediate benefit Of this system of

legal training is that,on his admission

to the bar,the young lawyer is famil

iar with the everyday routine of thecourts . He knows how to get h ispleadings into court

,and understands

pretty well how to steer his causethrough the many devious shoals andshallows that threaten to strand eventhe best case before it arrives in thesnug harbor of decision and judg

[ 18 ]


ment. He can do this and does nothave to ask the clerk, the bailiff, or thenearest attorney where and how he

shall file certain papers . In the lawschool for some reason or other, whileyou may have had an excellent MootCourt, still, when you have firstopened your office and a man rushesin hollering for an attachment or agarnishment or some other immediate legal action

, youwill suffer a sen

sation that is cousin-german to heartfailure . Why P Because, althoughyou have a pretty fair understandingof the meaning of those terms

,you

have never yet actually and really

attached a merchant’s stock or garnished the wages of a real live working man . That is where that ruderough boy that went through Jenning

’

s Office and got his law between

[ 1 9 ]


two spoons of soup has the advan

tage. Of course, you will get thatknow ledge yourself in due time, butI have seen some horrible messesmade during the period of incubation .

You personally will be all right because youhave Obtained that ex perience in my office but, if youhad nothad a lawyer for a father, I wouldhave advised you to spend your Oddtime while at school in running er

rands for some practicing attorney.

Look at Tom Wilkins . Tom cameto me from a law school , when youwere still a kidling

,uncertain wheth

er your life vocation was to be that

of a policeman’s, a field marshal’s or

a pirate’s . Wilkins was a good brightboy and has since achieved as muchsuccess as a man in our professionmay reasonably expect One after

[ 20 ]

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Dean Maple told me on his visithere last summer that he runs a littleinformal postgraduate course for theyoung Marshalls he has licensed to

practice . He tells me that it is aquiet day in his office at the lawschool if he is not called up at least

half a dozen times by the boys downtown, looking for information thathe thought he had drilled into theirheads when they were freshmen inthe law school . Some of those questions are certainly funny. The pointis that most Of the inquiries that are

hurled over the telephone with voicesof the greatest anxiety and concerndo not involve any legal question at

all, but are things the use of a littlecommon or garden reasoning wouldhave solved .

I am not prepared to say that the[ 22 ]


law is entirely a matter Of commonsense . I do not hesitate to say,though

,that, underlying every deci

sion that successfully stands the fire

Of a generation of lawyers, there isa good

,substantial stratum Of com

mon sense . Lawyers we must have,for the decisions Of the country haveaccumulated and reached so great avolume that we must have trainedmen to search them out and applythem to a given set Of facts . In theordinary business that comes to a

young lawyer’s Ofi‘ice, however, if he

will first determine what is right between man and man and what in rea

son is the speediest and cheapest way

Of securing those rights,the young

p ractitioner will not greatly err . I donot think that, Of the cases you will

get your first year, many of them will

[ 23 ]


run much over a hundred thousanddollars .I must not run on in this strain too

long, or youwill accuse me of preaching.

[ 24 ]

LETTER I I

MUST first congratulate you very heartily

on winning the Black

stone prize for the

best thesis . News of

that kind, you know, makes yourfather feel that perhaps all the moneyspent on your education had not been

wasted It shows me, too, that youhave done some work ; how much, Iwill not venture to compute, but thereis a prima facie case that you did

some . I have quietly Observed one

way and another that a law schoolis a place where youcan do a lot Ofwork

,and also a place where a man

can slide through pretty easily if he

will . Last fall when I called On youat your chapter house

,I found one

[ 25 ]


young man with his feet on the mantelpiece reading one of Mr . Chambers’ stories, probably as a relax ationfrom the severe mental labor occasioned by his too strenuous devotionto his law studies . The rest Of the

young men, so my friend of the l ightliterature informed me, were upstairsin their rooms studying. It wasa rather warm afternoon, and theworld of outdoors looked pretty inviting, so I mentally gave the studious youths cloistered in their bedrooms great credit for their industry .

Wh ile we were talking, waiting for

you to come — you were at the lawlibrary, you remember telling me

the telephone bell rang, and my friend

went to the foot Of the stairs and calledup for one Of the diligent students .He called once loud ; he called twice

[ 26 ]


very loud. NO response. With arather quizz ical glance at me, heturned and went upstairs . There wasa slight bustle

,strangely suggestive

of a man being dragged from a bed,wh ile a voice rose in querulous complaint,

“Aw, can

’t you let a fellowsleep '' A few seconds later a tonsled-haired youth stamped heavilydown to the telephone, muffled in a

bath robe From the snorts,sneezes,

and giggles that came from the telephone later, I judged that he was nottalking to one Of the law professors .Now I am not saying that some of

your good brethren were not studying, and if they were snoozing, why,that is all right . The afternoon siesta is a well-tried and approved customand has been in vogue in Latin countries for many centuries . It has the

[ 27 I


d isadvantage,though

,like many oth

er good things, of creeping on a manas a habit

,and gentlemen, who have

induk ed too strongly in the postprandial nap at school

,Often unconscious

ly relapse into it in their offices . Pov

erty is a good thing for a young law

yer if it prevents him the luxury of

an Office couch .

There is one thing I cannot scold

youabout in your college career ; youh ave not been a grind . Your motherand Aunt Emily were very much concerned at one time that you wouldtake your work too seriously and thatby too diligent application to thebooks you would make yourself ill .I didn’t take the trouble to allay their

fears, as I knew you were lookingafter that end of the proposition very

I 28 ]


that, as I have told you on divers andsundry occasions, is your father

’sidea of living.

We had a fellow at Hotchkins whowas in the grind category. He wasstudying to be a teacher . I got toknow him pretty well one way andanother, and a more charming fellowI have seldom met. I learned, directly and indirectly, that the poor chap

’ seyes had gone back on him during hisschool course

,and he had to have a

friend come and read the lessons tohim for two bits an hour . To payfor this and his other expenses, hewas compelled to run around townwith a patent carpet sweeper, cleaning carpets . This was not all , for,besides supporting himself, he washelping his sister through the statenormal school . Right then I decided

[ 30 ]


that, if you scratch a grind, you willOften make a hero bleed. The grindsI have met have usually been bigboned, big-handed chaps who did nothave to look in the dictionary for themeaning Of the word “chores . ' Morethan one Of the species has gone intofirst-class law offi ces from the reputation he made at school .Now , my boy, I want to say that I

have been mightily pleased with yourwhole conduct at school . This is inthe nature of an unsolicited testimonial which you may use for publication or not. In witness whereof I amenclosing a small check

,large enough

,

however, to enable you to bid a fittingadieu to academic scenes and compan

ions I thought it was very fine of

you to lay aside athletics, except in aminor, key, when yougraduated to the

[ 31 l


law department . You showed goodcommon sense in paying more attention to debate and public speaking.

When I heard you in the Rochesterdebate, I was very well pleased . I didnot flatter myself that another Web

ster was come to triumph , but I wasglad to see you get your words outwithout a cross between a sneezeand strangulation of the windpipe atevery period . There is an opinion ,and I have heard it even from professors Of public speaking

,that elo

quence has but little place at the bar .

This is entirely wrong. There may,it is true

,be fewer occasions for

plucking the bird Of Freedom, andrhetorically waving the good Old starsand stripes around your engloried

head,but there never was a greater

need than now for eloquence in its[ 32 ]


purest and most noble form at thebar .Youhave only to think how closely

the courts are interwoven with the

everyday affairs of the people, howpotent with consequences is even theshortest decision, to realize what aneed there is for the clear-seeing andclear-speaking man . Some of the

most enduring orations, as your OldLatin books will show

,were made in

matters Of law . Eloquence is the forc ible expression Of truth, and as suchshould be sedulously sought afterand wooed by the legal practitioner .

Many, who say that the bar is no fieldfor eloquence, are men whose vocabu

laries are limited to the small affairso f every day and who drone throughtheir cases in court over a rickety

chain Of“ahs' and “

chs.

'

As to the3 [ 33 1


matter Of debate, you will appreciatewhat training youhave Obtained inthis line when some little fire-eatingferret of a lawyer has you on the grillbefore an interested judge and anamused jury, and spends half Of histime trying his case and the otherhalf abusing you . Remember, a lawsuit is a fight, and the quick-thinking,accurately-speaking and level—headedman is the one who will win, andwithout resorting to mayhem to do it,either .

[ 34 ]

LETTER I I I

SEE that your graduating class is going

to number about fiftyyoung fellows . Whenyou remember that

hundreds Of other law schools all overthe country will disgorge as many as

your school , if not more, youcan see

that there is not going to be a dearthOf legal advice in this country, for awhile at any rate .

Now I am not going to say that weshall have more lawyers than weneed

,or that all these young men are

following the wrong line in rushinginto this business . Still it seems apity, when somuch Of this broad landis crying for brains and industry tocome and develop its hidden treas

[ 35 ]


ures,and where there is room and a

good substantial living in developingour mineral and agricultural resourc

es,that youngsters should flock into

a game which they can’t beat foryears and which assures them at bestonly a very ordinary living.

I blame the good times, partly, forthe great increase in the number Ofmen following all the professions . It

is easier now than it was some yearsago for a man to scratch throughschool and get his license to tinker upbodies or patch up injured rights . Ifthings were to pinch up hard, something like the memorable times Of ’

93,

you would see a marked falling Off inthe number Of students attending college and in the number Of profes

sionalgraduates . Necessity will simply drag them back and keep them on

I36 I


That is all right. Every citizenshould help the cause Of good government. But what a curious fact it isthat the total membership Of suchbodies is almost entirely composed Ofyoung lawyers ' Why this feverishthirst for reform that burns un

quenchably in the young lawyer’sbosom' Truly

,a visitor from Mars

would think the followers Of the legalprofession were the only patriots inthe country ; but the wise old practi

tioner allows the upper lid of his left

eye to drop slyly and coyly down uponthe under lid. He knows ; for, likethe measles

,he has had it, too.

Those members of reform bodies who

are not lawyers are young doctors, so,

if there is any credit due for superpatriotism

,we must include our

[ 38 ]


learned brothers Of the scalpel andlancet .I have known lots— yes, I use the

term advisedly— lots Of young fel

lows who graduated into the differentlaw schools from their A. B . courses

just because they did not like to breakOff with dear Old Alma Mater andh ad the means to keep up the giddywhirl a while longer. Taking academic courses, with some fellows, hasdeveloped into a harmless but ratherexpensive mania . At Hotchkins weh ad a nice bright sort Of a chap whotook just eight years to get his bachelor

’

s degree in arts . Jim simply hated the idea Of leaving the campus .

H e had become an institution himself, like the cane rush or the plug hatfight on Junior Day. He was an ora

[ 39 ]


cle on all traditions,ancient and

modern, and was generally supposedto have been on familiar terms withsome of the first graduates of the Oldschool . Poor Iim was the most depressed chap I ever saw when theyfinally ran him to earth and taggedhim “

A. B . He explained to me thatlife seemed to hold forth no hOpe ;

that there was nothing useful he coulddo any more to help his fellow men.

What would become of the traditions ' What would befall the unwritten history Of the school

,when

his faithful and receptive breastshould no longer bear it around Jenmings Field or on the Lilac Walk'Who would fill his particular nichewith the girls ; with the honor societies ; with the Old grads who were

[ 40 ]


wont to come to see the campus,but

really came to swap yarns with Jim'I agreed with him that the outlookwas certainly gloomy, and that he hadbeen unduly rash in crowding h iscourse into eight short years . Now

if we had had a graduate school ofany kind in those days, Old Jim wouldhave crowded right in for anotherthree years of anything— Pharmacy

,

Medicine,Dentistry or Law .

Out of your class of fifty chaps ,

youwill probably not have one born

lawyer. Youwill have several menlike yourself— raised as it were in thelaw atmosphere and with a good biastowards the law

,and all of such men

w ill be successful lawyers . But thatpeculiar genius for the law, the clear,penetrating insight into underlying

[ 41 ]


principles , the readiness and ability toex pound what the clear mind seesthat nature is found but seldom ; andwhen it does exist

,it usually makes

the man more of a law student than a

p ractitioner . This was the rare andinfrequent type to which Backstonebelonged . I Often think with greatinterest Of the young Blackstone harda t work in his chambers in TempleCourt, while upstairs lovable Goldsmith and his boon companions couldbe heard with wit and laughter passing the evening— and the flowingbowl . Goldsmith upstairs and Blackstone downstairs ; neither probablyhaving much to say to the other , butboth

,in their own ways, perpetuating

their names and forever adorning the

noble field Of English letters .

Now I said youwere not the born

[ 42 ]


lawyer . I will not quite so rashly putmyself on record . It is possible thatin the quietness of your post-collegiate life youwill some day be readingthe Old decisions and the old texts

,

and a sudden realization may come Ofthe wonder, the magnitude, the glory,the mystery, and the grandeur ofEnglish law . Youwill begin to readwith a new feeling, a new interest.Youmay have set yourself down alegal hack

,looking for crannies and

loopholes to gain a catch-pennyadvantage Of your opponent, andmay rise a philosopher

,an Austin

,a

Blackstone . I shall esteem youmorein that event than if youwere makingfifty thousand dollars a year in activepractice

,because the work Of an Aus

tin shall live and must live when the

myriad names Of trumpet-toned crim43 I


inal lawyers shall have ebbed intowhat Carlyle fittingly calls the Eternal Silences . '

I have an unsatisfactory feelingthat I have been indulging in daydreams . Well, I won

’t insist on yourbeing a philosopher— a legal ph ilosopher. I shall be quite content if youare an honest and upright lawyer,who has an Old-fashioned regard forthe worth Of his word.


sions, my son, you can either workvery hard or you can scrape along,putting Off all things until to-morrow,

and being rewarded with a sl im dietand plenty of time for sleep . It isthis opportunity for shirking thatdrives lots of chaps into the professions . If a teamster or a day laborerwere to loaf as much as do the young— and some old— professional men,

he would be arrested for vagrancy .

Lots of young lawyers are no betterthan vagrants, yet they cannot be ar

rested for having no visible means Ofsupport

,for the reason that they can

point with great dignity to their diploma and explain that they are waiting. SO, while the teamster who loafsis universally condemned, the youngprofessional man who emulates thelil ies in their indifference to labor of

[ 46 ]


all kinds is considered something of

a hero. He has trained the world tothink of him as a doggedly persistentyouth, who prefers to eat a crust ofbread and cling to his chosen profession, rather than to have a porterhouse steak for breakfast at the priceOf ringing a time clock every morningat eight O’clock.

Not all the men who graduate with

youwill practice law . In fact, I venture to prophesy that ten years fromnow not more than three per cent . ofyour class will be found in activepractice . TomWilkins told me someinteresting things about his class . Itappears that lawyers are to be foundin almost every kind Of activity. OneOf his classmates was a street carconductor

,another was working for

three dollars a day as a carpenter,[ 47 ]


three were bank clerks, two had become book agents, another was colleeting telephone rentals for a publicservice corporation, and another waskeeping in touch, rather remotely,with his profession by becoming apoliceman. Less than three per cent.were actively practicing law . Somefew had gone into law offices as clerksand were working for twenty-fivedollars a month— and experience.Older lawyers refuse to become

alarmed at an invasion of their territory by new blood . At least, they assume faces of stoical indifference andpretend to welcome the newcomer onthe ground that “more lawyers, morelaw business' — that the new lawyer,in other words , makes business .

Well,it is a fact that there usually

must be two lawyers to a lawsuit ; but

I48 I


unless a young man is going out tomaintain a campaign of champertyand barratry, I do not know that thearrival of a new lawyer will helpthings very much .

Eureka was one of those sleepy little mid-Western towns that dot thel ines Of the railroads traversingWisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois . There wasone Old lawyer there by the name ofBaisden, a good Old man who had allthe law business of Eureka and itsvicinity in feesimple . Well , one sunmy day a young fellow dropped inwith a cow of the Wisconsin Codeunder his arm and a tattered carpetbag, which contained all his worldlybelongings . He had come to practicelaw in Eureka . I guess it took aboutall h is available capital to engage anOffice over the local bank building.

4 [ 49 ]


Anyway, he got himself installed andI suppose he gave Old Blogg

,the

signwriter, the cry Of distress of the

'ueer Fellows Order ; for Old Bloggput the boy up a sign,

right over thedrug store . Thereafter Blackstonejunior settled himself to wait— and

wait he certainly did. After a monthor two he would walk around withoutvery much ambition in his step

, and

his suit was as shiny, especiallyaround the seat of his trousers

,as the

back of one of those scaly Old reptiliaOf South America . Old ladies wereheard to complain that the glare fromthe boy’s suit on a sunny day affectedtheir eyes . I don’t know how truethat may have been, but for some reason Or other he used to perambulatein the dusk Of the evening, instead ofin the heat of the day, as before . 'im

[ 50 ]


Hastings, the groceryman, told methe boy would come in there afterdark and smuggle a few groceriesusually of the most substantial sort

(none of your patede foie gras' -upto his office .Waiting at last must have becomean intolerable weariness . Hope deferred— you know. I guess he settledhimself down to some pretty hardthinking while munching Jim Hastings ’ bread and sausage.Now he was not altogether wasting

his time He was getting acquainted,making friends

,and had become par

ticularly chummy with Uncle Ned,the town marshal . Uncle Ned was apretty good solo player, and put inlots of time practicing at the tables inthe back of Abe Stringer’s saloon .

There was one fellow he could not

[ 51 ]


beat in town, and that was Epson, theyoung lawyer I am telling youabout.One afternoon

,Epson sat down and

let Uncle Ned beat him three straightgames

,a feat which tickled the Old

man mightily. Then he bought UncleNed a couple of drinks and oneof Stringer’s abominable cigars . InUncle Ned’s Opinion there was nobody in town like young Epson .

When he got through with the old

marshal,Epson went down to the

railroad tracks and calmly smoked hispipe, waiting for a freight train to

come through . Eureka,was a divi

sion point on the railroad, and Epsondid not have to wait very long for afreight . The first train brought intwo bums, and the next three, and

finally, when it was getting dark, Epson could have been seen traveling

[ 52 ]


them. He did defend them,and got

them Off all right and made a speechthat was talked about around Eurekafor ten years . But it wasn’t till OldUncle Ned died that Epson confessedthat the whole thing was arrangedbetween the marshal and himself . .

Well,he got his share of the law busi

ness around Eureka after that,and

the shiny suit was soon after put intothe discard.

[ 54 ]

LETTER '

DID not expect to re

ceive very many let

ters from you at.

thiscritical period of yourhistory, without find

ing in some of them an allusion to

your future location .

I have known all along that youdid not feel quite satisfied at the pros

p eet Of coming in with me. Youfeelthat Wilmotville is a somewhat restricted field for your activities, and,I suppose, with the proverbial ardorof youth

, youlong for distant scenes-for “fresh fields and pastures

new.

' That is laudable . I think Id iagnose your case correctly when Isay that youfeel the life of a lawyerin a small mid-Western town to be

[ 55 ]


pretty humdrum ; that it has nothingto Offer youeither in the way Of money or political honors .

Well , I would not care to have yousettle down with me

,if you d id not

feel quite satisfied with the outlook.

I think we would take in enoughmoney for us both to eat on, anyway,and perhaps have a small margin forluxuries . I f you were temperamen

tally fitted to work beside me and succeed to my business, as I have nodoubt you would in due time, youwould find that the life would holdfor youmany compensations and at

tractions . This will be especially truewhen you are a little Older

,when a

few of the rose dreams have vanished

,when you have become a little

more portly around the girth ,and

[ 56 ]


have ceased to fly up the steps Of thecourthouse in two vigorous leaps .Frankly, I would not exchange my

particular lot in this life with any

man. I have my own well-orderedOffice and my own well-ordered business . Such an offi ce to me is a havenOf rest ; not the rest of slothfulness,but the quiet peace of the regular dayw ith its regular duties . There is acharm more subtle than I can expressto you even in the inanimate furnishings Of the Office in the neat rows of

well-selected law books, with the uni

form buff and red bindings on the

outside Of them and a measure of

truth on the inside ; in the well-worndesk at which your grandfather fiftyyears ago wrote his memorable speechin defense Of Plinlimmon,

unjustly[ 57 ]


accused of the murder of Mrs . Simmons ; in the chairs polished with thearms of generations of clients as theyrecounted a hundred stories Of wrongand injustice ; even in the carpet, longfaded into a gray and tasselled dotage, trodden by men who have achieved undying fame in a score of different lines of effort.In my position a man becomes in

course of time a little court of justicein himself. Many and many a dispute have I settled without the trouble or expense of going to court .Most of the Old settlers, as youknow,

refer their disputes to me, and myOpinion is accepted by them as nuquestioningly as if it were a mandateof the Supreme Court Of the UnitedStates . This is well , and as it shouldbe. The true lawyer is a

'

pacifier, not

[ 58 ]


a provoker . His efforts are morethan commercial

,higher and nobler

than merely mercenary. On his in

tegrity and good sense depend thewell-being

, not only Of individuals intheir petty differences

,but also of the

community as a whole, which prospers when time is saved by a peaceable settlement Of disputes, and money goes into the land, instead of intothe county treasury for costs, or intothe pockets of ravenous lawyers forfees .SO I find in this life, my boy, a

higher satisfaction than that whichcomes from feverishly watching abank roll grow. My pleasures aresimple, and the sight of a widow com

ing into my Office in tears, and departing with smiles and renewed hope

,

warms my heart in a way that the

[ 59 ]


tender of a seat on the SupremeBench could hardly accomplish .

I never aspired to preside over a

law corporation, with half a dozenstenographers, a dozen clerks, andfour or five partners . I don’t reallyfeel quite comfortable on enteringone Of those ornate city Offi ces, wherea pert youngster demands your business

,and then informs you that you

may see one of the partners in anywhere from four hours to fourteenyears . I suppose they are makingmoney ; but I am sure such men would

be as depressed at the sudden cessat ion of litigation as the high-pricedear-and-nose specialist would be ifevery one should be created withh ealthy ears and noses . If I felt like

making a barrel of money, I assure

you that the law business would be

[ 60 ]


Oflice window, and presently a pom

pous,rather florid-complexioned man

of about my age entered the Office ,breathing rather heavily from the ef

fort Of climbing the stairs . Betweentwo fat, bejewelled fingers he held ath ick smug-looking cigar, with one ofthose eye-destroying bands around it .He Ofi ered me the mate Of that cigar ,and being something of a smoker myself

,and always ready to accept any

expression Of the good will Of myfellow men, I took it ; and after supper that night I enjoyed it mightily

,

as I reflected between the puffs on theevents of the day .

My visitor eyed my little Office wi tha great air Of complacency

,and decid

ed that the whole effect was “veryquaint— very quaint

,indeed . In

fact, I suppose he considered it an in

[ 62 ]


teresting survival of the Old school,whatever that was . He explainedthat he would have sent one of theboys down to try the little case (bythat I suppose he meant one Of theoverpaid clerks in his offi ce', but hethought it was an excellent opportu

nity to run out to the country in his“machine' and make a little holiday.

The rustic courthouse amused thislawyer very much , and, when he sawOld Job Wilks totter in with the records

,he asked me in an audible voice

whether the Old man “served in theWar of the Rebellion or was one

Of George Washington’s aides-decamp .

'

Of course, I won my case . Thesurprising thing to me, however, was

the unutterably poor argument this

ornate gentleman advanced to the

( 63 1


court. His reasoning was weak, illogical , and almost childish . I soondecided that he was a lawyer only bylicense ; that he was one of those fellows , known as

“good business getters,

'

who turn the cases over to whatthey call their “offi ce lawyers

,

'

and

that it probably would have been better for his dignity, as well as for th einterests of his client, if he had sentone of the “

boys' instead of tryingto make a little holiday by cominghimself.

[ 64 ]

LETTER VI

MUST admit that youare right when you

say that much Of my

former letter— in re

the matter of location-must be stricken as irrelevant

,im

material, and incompetent . I didstart out with the intention Of seri

ously discussing the best whereabouts

for you to settle and hang out theshingle of a lawyer and a gentleman ,but sentiment treasonably waylaidme

,and I was betrayed into a eulogy

of the “Old armchair .

' I rather pridemyself on my pleadings , but, when

settled down to write a letter, one

thing leads to another, and before I

finish I find that I have had a delight5 [ 65 ]


ful ramble,but have reached no par

ticular destination .

I suppose that, with the th eses all

finished and submitted, and the burning question Of the best one duly settled to the satisfaction of only one

person,namely, yourself, and with

nothing much to do before the eventful day when you shall march two

and two to the Auditorium to receivethe parchment and ribbons, the chieftopic of discussion is, Where next '

For some Of the fellows, the matter i s

settled by circumstances . Some Of

the boys will be absolutely broke, andwill be compelled to take some job toget car fare, if they want to get outOf town . With some of them the jobthey take temporarily will perhap sprove a permanency . They will never be able to see their way clear to

[ 66 ]


break into the law business, especially

i f they wait very long to see whatsuccess comes to their bolder and bardier comrades who have taken thechilling plunge.Outside of doing it yourself

,there

is no more discouraging thing than towatch the struggles of a young lawyer for the first few years after hisadmission . One feels that, if he werea rich man

,he would leave some kind

Of a fund to help those chaps along,although at the same time he feelsthat that would be about the worstpossible thing that could happen to

young lawyers . Lots Of the boys enter their own first little law Office aspink-checked youngsters , and come

out Of it a few years later— to move,let us say

, to better quarters— soberlooking men

,with a few lines that

[ 67 ]


only that particular ex perience couldengrave on their faces . 50 the manwho takes a job and waits for a stakeoften wakes up a little late to find

that he is an honored and respectedbookkeeper, but not a lawyer .Over his after-supper cigar one

evening, Judge Finlayson told methat when he was admitted to the Barback in Connecticut he was absolutely without a cent in his pocket, and nocollateral that would realize five centsat the Sign Of the Three Gold Balls .

In those days what is now the MiddleWest was considered pretty far

West, and the future judge’s mind

was full of Horace Greeley’s memorable and oft-quoted advice . He

wanted to goWest , and the wish with

the Judge in those days , as it is now ,

was but the sweetheart to the per

[ 68 ]

LETTERS TO A YOUNG LAWY ER

him and appeal to their char ity .

Now,if the Judge had not been fee l

ing pretty mellow,he would neve r

have told me of this incident ; for ,while it showed some enterprise, itwas not a strictly honorable thingto do .

Going into a hotel, the Judge helped himself to the hotel stationery,tore Off the printed letter head

,and

very laboriously printed himself a notice, something after the style he hadseen on the deaf and dumb man’scard . As a deaf and dumb man hetraveled with wonderful success fromConnecticut to Illinois, where he settled and made later the remarkablereputation which he deserved . Hisfirst political office was justice of thepeace, and he assured me, with atwinkle in his eye

,that for quite a

[ 70 ]


while the leniency with which he

treated traveling mendicants of allkinds was matter of comment— mostly unfavorable— in all the countryaround.

Now ,whether yougo to a big city

or a small town, youwill at least havecar fare. Fortunately the means isnot the question with you, but the location.

/f I have heard it once, I haveheard it a hundred times, to wit 'That if the young lawyer goes to abig city and waits long enough he will

have a larger and consequently morelucrative practice than if he had madehis first venture in a small town .

Statistics do not support this theory.

I am no lover Of figures, and I can’t

quote any if I would ; for I have for

gotten just exactly how it is figured

[ 71 ]


out. But I do know that, taking theaverage -the average, mind you— Of

city lawyers’ incomes

,they will not

exceed the income of the averagecountry lawyer . The advocate of thesmall town says that his man willmake money from the start— that inthe small town the young lawyer willhave no waiting period. From myown experience I know this is wrong.

Whether the lawyer gOes to a big or

a small town, he will have to wa itawhile ; but, of course, by being morequickly acquainted in a small town

,

he will not have to wait quite so longas his brother in the city. He maynot have to wait at all after he is ac

quainted in a small town, for he maybe one Of the men who do not improveon acquaintance ; and I have knownmore than one such lawyer leave the

l 72 ]


small town under rather ignominiouscircumstances . For the man who

does not stand close acquaintanceship,I unhesitatingly prescribe the big city,where he can hide himself and passhis time unobtrusively between the

police court and the barrel house .

The matter Of a location is one thata man must decide according to histw perament . Some men are not

happy unless they have a thousandmiles Of arc lights on each hand.

What was it that Old Dr . Johnsonsaid about the smell Of a flambeauin

Fleet Street being sweeter to himthan the finest aroma of new-mownhay on the countryside ' Such menreflect with perfect horror on the

seeming meanness Of the “jay town,'

with its three or four blocks Of straggling wooden sidewalks, its Beehive

[ 73 I


Dry Goods Store, the Swede Church,and the Patsy Saloon, and the talkative livery man, without whom nosmall community is complete .

LETTER VI I

HE point about locatingin a small town to

start with is this ' Emerson

,among the very

many fine thoughtswhich he expounded, has one to the

effect that, if a man is truly competent in his particular sphere Of work,the world, always anxious to Obtainthe best, will beat a pathway to h isdoor . When once it becomes knownthat a man is truly able

,he will not

have to go to the largest market andhawk his wares from door to door .The buyer will come to him . The

finest apples in the world are grownin the greatWenatchee ' alley, in thestate of Washington, and buyersfrom all the big world-centers come

[ 75 ]


there to purchase the luscious crop .

TheWenatchee man does not have tosend out a long string Of salesmen .

He has simply to plant, water, anda ttend his orchards and the worldwatches and waits for the apples toripen. The Passion Play in Oberammergan is something peculiar to acertain locality. It stays in the smallv illage where it originated and menare glad to come from all parts Of theearth to witness it and glad to pay allk inds Of money to get there . SO far

from its being advisable for the rust ic actors to take their play “

on the

road,' to stage it anywhere but at

home would be to eventually weakenand ruin the play.

Two Of the very best surgeons inthe United States are content to re

main in a small town in the Middle

[ 76 1


knows it better than any other man ;and presently the big corporations, insearch Of the best, would have theirscouts out sniffing around thosemountains for an interview . Com

pared to the rest of the world, Palestine is only a smear Of a few rockyacres of ground, yet, because Of theworth and the truth Of One who l ived

there some centuries ago, unnumbered millions Of men have been put inclose and intimate relations with their

Creator .I would suggest that you get intosome town Of about five thousand

people, in a growing and enterprisingpart of the country. You will havemany Of the pleasures which a manin a cow-town could not get . You

will have the opportunity Of getting a

variety of law experience that you

[ 78 ]


could not Obtain in the too small community, and, best of all, you will notbe smothered with the competitionthat makes practice in a big city al

most an impossibility. It has ceasedto be a picturesque thing to starve todeath in your Office . This countryneeds all its men too badly to permit

them to emulate the example of theyoung barrister Dickens tells about

,

who was missed from his circle all atOnce, and some months later wasfound in the closet of his chambers, askeleton .

In the blush Of young enthusiasm Ispent two dreary years in Chicagotrying,

to get a foothold. The city

was not then as big and bustling as it

is now, yet it seems to me that theyhad just as many lawyers, comparatively speaking, then as now . Now,

[ 79 ]


I did not give up the struggle of myown free will and accord. I just naturally came to a place where it was acase of going to work or going without meat, and I decided that, ratherthan abandon my profession

,if I

could not practice it in' Chicago

,I

would go to some place where I could .

A true lawyer has something Of theartist spirit . He must practice law or

rust to death . I f he is starved out inNew York

,you will find him sitting

on an iceberg in Nome,blowing on

his fingers to keep them warm,and

conning the statutes Of the District.

Well,I found in Chicago that many

young men who were maintaining Offices, and to all appearances were

practicing law,had some other kind

of refuge . Numbers of them . were

working night shifts in the post Of

[ 80 ]


fice. Some others found their wayinto the county Offices where nightclerks are employed. In this waythey were able to struggle along.

This method of practicing law ismore heroic than pleasant, and if persisted in is well calculated to age a

man some years before his time .

What I like about the small-town

practice is that a man is within walking distance Of his home . Youdo nothave to sit and fret and worry inyour small

,top-story Office all day,

and at night jam into some over

crowded street car for a nine-mileride to your home . Nothing like that .

In the country you can walk home foryour dinner and supper . You willhave better things to eat, and more ofthem . You will find a place to boardw ith some motherly woman, who will

a [ 81 ]


feel worried if you do not eat everything in sight on the table. You willmake many pleasant acquaintances .You will feel fresh and strong forstudy and work. The agent for thebig corporation may never find youout ; but then that will be to your advantage, after all . Not that I believethat the corporations are looking fordishonest men, or for men who can

teach them how to evade the law .

The people must make bogeys of

something. A hundred years ago inEngland it was Napoleon

,and in

present-day America it is Capita l .Most big industrial concerns are goodpeople to do business with . I f you

work for them, youare sure of yourpay on Saturday night . I f youbuyof them, you know pretty well th atyou are getting your money’s worth .

[ 82 ]


The men who want big lawyers tohelp them break the laws usuallyhave meteoric, but brief, careers .Our Federal prisons testify to the

quality of the legal advice such menmust have Obtained.

For fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year any corporation can get agood lawyer to do everything that isnecessary to protect its interests .The fifteen thousand dollar man hasunder him a staff Of lawyers who are

drawing not more than some of themen in the engineering department .I f youcan

’t go to work for a corpora

tion as a fifteen thousand dollar man,I don’t want you to go to work forthem at all . Twenty years with acorporation spoils a man and hisch ances of ever practicing. I know

no more pitiable sight than the man

[ 83 ]


who has scratched along on somebody’s pay roll for a dozen or moreyears, and then tries to branch out in

his own practice. I have seen too

many shipwrecks made of this sort ofthing. Get you into a location and

stay— stay— stay. Work for yourself. Don’t waste your time and energy playing another man

’s game .

Then,when the almond tree begins to

blossom,you will have something to

sustain and occupy you.

[ 84 ]


score a glorious touchdown . I knowhow you feel, my boy, in regard to

immuring yourself,' as you call it,

in a small town. You feel to a certainextent that you are “out Of the game'

— that the real fight is in the big center

,and that there the real fighter

should be.You are right again when you say

that one fee in the big town equalstwenty in the small . The only thingis that your country brother is mak

ing his forty small fees while your bigone is just appearing as a nebulousand impalpable shadow on the horizon

,contingent upon the outcome of

some case,which, with an overcrowd

ed calendar, the court will not be able

to reach for six months . If you arein a densely populated district, thecrowded condition of the courts will

[ 86 ]


make it impossible for youto get results, even if you start filing complaints the very first day you openyour office that is

,you cannot get

your money out of the cases for

months .I will not say that money will flow

to the man who opens in a small townjust as soon as he gets there . Somemen are doomed to starve to death ina community Of three hundred souls

,

as well as in a community Of threemillion . In the law, as in every otherl ine Of human endeavor

,so much de

pends upon the man . The man re

fuses to be measured by a yardstick.

He may confirm your fears, or he

may set all rules and precedents at defiance, do the unexpected thing everytime, and achieve a splendid success .This, Of course, is all Obiter dicta .

[ 87 ]


I f I were compelled to render a decision proper upon the matter Of location, I would say ' If youhave nocapital

,nor any employment youcan

follow that will run your law Office

(some kind Of night work, I mean'if youwant to depend upon the practice of law for a living

,your wisest

course is to content yourself with theday Of small things and be a backwoods lawyer.I f you make up your mind youwant to go to Chicago, I think that Imay be able to Obtain youa clerkshipin Judge Flory’s Office. You mayhave to hang around the Judge’s officefor two or three months , finding out

where he keeps his legal blanks, and

giving him a chance to size youup .

If he likes you, I have no doubt thatthe Judge would pay you some small

[ 88 ]


salary— twenty-five dollars a month,

or someth ing like that . Under thepretense of giving young lawyers ex

perience, many firms are Obtainingsplendid service for practically nothing. Frankly, it makes me a little impatient to see a good, honest, capable

young fellow sweating blood and living on cheese and crackers becausehe thinks by doing that he 13 gettinggood “

Ofiice experience .

'

Now,in

the economic scale, the work Of ayoung lawyer is worth so much It

may not be worth a very great deal,but it 15 always worth more than the

miserable pittance which an employ

ing lawyer wants to pay . I f the pay

in these cases were commensuratewith the work performed

,a boy could

afford to follow that system for ayear or two ' First, because it will

[ 89 ]


enable him to get a few dollars to

gether to take him to the country,

where he will eventually go ; second,because he has a chance to learn pract ical procedure at somebody else’s expense rather than his own.

Dean Maple has a faculty Of saying the right thing ln the right way.

Last spring, when I came up to see

you, I happened to drop into theDean’s Office for a friendly chat onOld times and Old friends . It was aw eek or so before Commencement

,

and a senior strolled into the Dean’sOffice, and from the way he talked I

judged he had been doing some heavythinking on ways and means for thefuture .

The Dean looked up at him from

beneath his shaggy brown eyebrow s,and in that brisk

,sharp way of his

[ 90 ]


said, Well, Shankland, what nex t''

Shankland shifted from one foot toanother, and rather weakly volun

teered the information that he wasgoing out to look for a job.

“What kind Of a job, inquired theDean .

“Oh, I guess a job in some law of

fice, said Shankland.

The Dean laid down his pen and,

looking Shankland squarely in the

eye,asked ' “

And what are you going to get a job in a law Office for'

'

Well ,' replied the boy,

“I guessto get onto the ropes .

'

“Get onto the ropes '' the Deansnapped .

“Get onto the ropes ' Somepretty poor ropes you’ll get onto . GO

out and make your own ropes . '

When the boy had gone I ventured

to applaud the Dean’s advice. He

[ 91 ]


looked at me with a knowing twinklein his eye.

“I cannot see, he said, why allthese young fellows want to rush into somebody’s law Office . There aresome lawyers of thirty years’ practicein whose Offices I would be afraid tospend a week, for fear I would pickup their little legal vices, as well aswhat virtues they may have. Thisis very poor business, getting ontosomebody else’s ropes . I believe that,after three years of the drilling aman gets here, he ought to be able to

go and work out his own salvation .

'

In all the world, there is no ex pe

ricuce just like the kind a man getsin his own law office . The law clerkprepares a complaint, knowing thathis employer is going over it after

wards, and anything that is wrong

[ 92 ]


shot of bad whisky, and wants totoss you and the desk and the libraryall out of the window at once, youwill think there is something in thelaw business besides wearing goodclothes and attending law lunches.

[ 94 ]

LETTER IX

OME Of your ideas onthe subject Of the lawyer in politics are

good. You say that,even if a man should

for an Office and be defeated, hewill have had the advantage of alot of advertising. That statementshould be qualified a little . I haveknown a great many men to run forOffice who did not get a cent’s worthOf law business as a result . Morethan that, I have known men to holdoffice for a number Of years, and ontheir return to private life be com

pelled to laboriously build up a pract ice again .

In the average community the lawbusiness flows into certain hands

,

[ 95 ]


and, if pretty well taken care Of, isnot likely to change except for verygood reasons . Tom Jones may neverrun for Office . He may be content toremain in the little Old town and lookafter the family troubles of his neighbors . He becomes known to them asa lawyer . He knows all their affairs .They trust him . Bill Brown, of thesame town, may be elected to Congress for a number Of terms . He

may go to Congress a young manand return home a middle-aged one .

He has been compelled to live up toall he earned at the capital .When finally out Of Office, he turns

his face towards home with the pleasant feeling that the natives are justwaiting for him to come back and

take up their troubles again . Whathe really finds is that the Jones type

[ 96 ]


of lawyer has got most of the business corralled . Just because Brownhas been in Congress does not lookl ike a good enough reason for Old

Farmer Akers to quit Old Tom, who

has been giving him good serviceand has always been found reliable .Brown, of course, will probably getnew business ; but it is a matter ofstarting all over again .

In all parts Of the country,in the

big cities, as well as in the rural communities, men will be found who haveh eld

'

greater public Ofii ces than BillBrown’s

,who nevertheless are barely

making a living from the scatteredthreads Of a long-neglected practice .

We must give the lay public creditfor a little more intelligence than it isusually supposed to have . Just because you run for justice of the peace

7 [ 97 ]


and get licked is no reason why clients should come tearing into yourOffi ce for legal advice . You say itgets you before the public— it gets

youknown . The public’s memory isvery short for politicians .All a man has to do who wants to

get a divorce is to stand in the intersection Of two main streets in theheart of the city, and he will see thenames Of fifty lawyers on as many Of

fice windows, some Of whomwill handle his case for five dollars, andothers who will want five hundred .

Even if our supposed client wereaware that an election for justice ofthe peace had been held, it is ex tremely unlikely that he is keeping a copy

Of the newspaper in his pocket in or

der to find a lawyer’s name when hewants it .


If yougo into politics, go with theintention of land ing the job youareafter. Anyway, don

’t try to tell your

printer to wait until you get yourbusiness from the campaign for his

pay for the advertising matter youuse . I don’t know if it is advisablefor the young lawyer to meddle inpolitics ; but I know that it is in vainto try and dissuade him . Like children and the measles, almost everyyoung lawyer has to have his attackof politics.The lawyer-politician does not at

tract the best clientele. For somereason or other, we all have a certainsuspicion of politicians . Men of business affairs regard them as particularly obnoxious ; nor will they bringtheir law business to a man whowears the hated brand. There are

[ 99 ]


exceptions to this, too. ' ery bigbusiness makes its own politicians.

They take their lawyers and trainthem, and place them in the highestpositions in the land. I assume that

youare not looking for that kind Ofa political career.

In moderation,perhaps, politics

can do you no harm. If you shouldsucceed in becoming Prosecuting A ttorney for Carney County, and shoulddischarge the duties of that Officecreditably, it would be good trainingfor you, both in a legal and politicalway. It would get you favorably

known to the people of the county ;but private practice, ably managed,will do that just as effectively, and

with the advantage that youwill nothave made any partisan enemies .The successful politician bears the

[ 100 ]


Nothing so coarsens a man as pol

ities . There is something about theunholy swelter that takes the fine

edge Off a man’s sensibil ities . I willhave to leave it to psychologists toinform us just what has been lost ; Ido know that the Officeholder is neverquite the same man, never quite so

good a man, as before his election.

This is a letter Of qualified statements . I must qualify my strictureson the effect Of political success upona man’s temperament. I have knownmediocre lawyers elected to the bench

,

who seemed to grow in mental stature from the very day that they took

Office. I took the bar ex aminationwith a young fellow named Wilson.

He was a pleasant, agreeable chap ,but not what would be called an ex '

tremely learned lawyer. That ex ami

[ 102 ]


nation was ex tremely deep water forh im, and from all his painful anticsI concluded that he was about submerged. However, he managed to

get through, and was delighted withall the delight Of the man to whomthe happy unex pected has happened.

Wilson had no illusions about ousting the President Of the New YorkBar Association from his chair in acouple of short weeks . Not he. Therewas only one place for Wilson . Hewas going West ; and West he went .Somewhere amidst the broad, sweating stretches of gray sagebrush thatroll from the Mississippi River to theCascade Mountains, the intrepidWilson tacked up the shingle Of a lawyer

and all-around adviser Of men . Ih eard nothing of him for about three

years, when I got news that Wilson

[ 103 ]


had been elected judge Of one of the

remote Western counties . He wasthen, I think, barely thirty years ofage . DO youknow, he made a finerecord ' From there, he walked to

the Supreme Bench of his state,and

I have had the pleasure of readingsome of his Opinions, which were notonly models of pure English, but extremely erudite and logi cal .

[ 104 ]


tion as the most critical part, how

ever . That sort Of th ing is not peculiar to the law business. As to missing a meal once in a while, that won

’t

hurt youat all . Men have lived fortwo weeks on the sole Of a rubbershoe, and have lived to tell what adelicate diet that may be under somecircumstances. The most important

question for the young lawyer is howto properly utilize the time. A youngfellow rents himself an Office and sett les down to wait for clients. Howi s he employing himself during thattime of waiting'I know some fellows who read

everything but law . The first hourOf the morning is spent in diligent

p erusal Of the newspaper. On theirdesks you will find all kinds ofmagaz ines and periodicals . Seldom will

[ 106 ]


youfind among that pile Of d'bris aprofessional journal . These men willhave an amazing fund Of general information, yet the chances are ten toone, speaking after the manner Of

gambling men, that they will notknow enough to join the wife in an

action involving community property.

They will make that mistake onlyonce. A sinister Nemesis will findthem out and expose them, when theproperty in litigation comes to bepassed to the hands of a third person .

It is a horrible sensation to have to

ex plain to an indignant client justhow that error occurred . Don’t thinkthat you can bewilder the litigant .He will ask yousome pretty pointedquestions

,and will not be satisfied,

commonplace creature that he is, witha quotation from Epictetus in the

[ 107 I


original, or a stanza from the Lay

Of the Last Minstrel. When he is

gone, and you mop the sweat from

your fevered brow, that Old Code that

you neglected will seem to reprove

you audibly for your indolence and

carelessness .The man who can find pleasure in

continual reading,if it is only the

light, frothy stuff that goes under thedesignation of “light literature

,

' is alittle better Off than the man who

does not care for general reading,

and who cannot bring himself to readlaw . That sort of individual is in a

most unhappy way. Hour after hour

youmay find him, sitting with h isfeet on the desk, stolidly smoking h is

p ipe and dreaming. A few months Of

that bitter do-nothing way Of living[ 108 ]


and listens to the request Of the lawyer .for the bad bills . He has no badbills ; in fact, he says with a smile,that he has no bills at all

, good orbad, but if Mr . Brown will leave h iscard he will call him up the first timehe has anything to collect. The doctor is pleasant and courteous, but thelawyer sees a peculiar look in the doc

tor’s eye, a look of surprised disapproval, as though this was hardly theproper course of conduct for a mem

ber of a learned and respected profession to pursue.

Outside in the hall Mr . Browntakes a second thought about the col

lection proposition . It does not lookquite so good to him as at first .

However, he determines not to be defeated by a look, and enters the nex t

[ 1 10 1


office, one occupied by an Old gray

h eaded doctor. NO, thank you; henever gives his bills to collectors.

Yes,he has lost thousands Of dollars

in bad bills ; but he knows that, if h is

people can pay, they will do so. Furthermore, he has not a very exaltedidea of doctors who give their billsto collectors .Now ,

that strikes young Brown asrather a new th ing in professionalethics . What a quaint idea thatnot even to give a bill to a collector 'What a gulf between that attitudeand the attitude Of a man who, because he is a lawyer, goes out andbegs for a chance to hound a debtordown ' Brown goes back to his pipeand his office, and later, when thepressure becomes too strong, goes out

[ 1 1 1 ]


and gets some kind Of a job, hopingto make a small stake and start properly.

The point is that, if you do not occupy your mind while sitting alone in

your Office, you are going to lose yourhead. Youare going to entertain a

thousand wildcat schemes for makingthat meal ticket . There is only one

remedy,and that is in the diligent and

systematic study Of your books . Ifyou have spent the day conning yourtex t and your cases, you will go homeat night feeling that you have done aday’s work, even if you have nottaken in a cent Of money. Steady lawreading is an excellent corrective for

all sorts Of bad mental habits .Again, you should spend as much

time as you can in the courts,

‘ listen

[ 1 12 ]


man respects the student, and th e

reputation for being constantly at h isbooks or in the courts is an asset

wh ich w ill insure any lawyer quite a

continuous rotation ofmeal tickets.

[ 1 14 ]

LETTER X I

0 W m u c h capital

should a lawyer have

to commence businesswith' In every casethis may be answered

by saying that he should have enoughto support life decently until he canderive some returns from his practice . It can be plainly seen, fromthat, that the place which will soonestyield the young lawyer some realmoney for his work is the place wherehe can afford to start with less cashin hand. Location decides the amountthe lawyer should take into the townwith him .

Now, Of course, there are fellows,whom we all know, who have startedin this business on a shoestring. Bill

[ 1 15 ]


Williams came into ' err Countytwenty years ago so poor that he hadto go to milking cows to make enoughto eat . He is prosperous now ; but ,while rustling around and doing general chores, Bill was wasting valuabletime that might have been saved to

him had he brought a couple of hundred dollars with him.

As I have said before,starting in a

big city means getting into some

body’s office as a clerk ; working nigh tshifts in the post Office, or whereverthere is an opening ; or being amongthe fortunate number who have pr ivate means enough to lift them abovethe anxiety and worry of living fromhand to month until they get a star t .Going into the country to practicedoes not mean that you are going tomake money right away, and, person

[ 1 16 ]


found that it is located on two railroads, and, according to the SecretaryOf the Commercial Club, two or th reemore great transcontinental railroadsare fighting for a chance to come in.

You have found that it contains fivechurches, Of as many different denominations, as well as a SalvationArmy Barracks and a temple of

Christian Science . Two weekly newspapers supply the inh abitants with allthe information and amusement theyneed, outside of the occasional visitof a theatrical company. There arethree banks, the First National, theFarmers’

,and the Commercial Sav

ings and Trust Company.

Now comes the question of the

number of lawyers who are alreadyliving on the good people Of Grasstown. This is the important ques

[ 1 18 ]


tion, and the one to be cogitated uponwhen debating the amount of moneya man should take in . If Grasstownh ad only a few hundred people, andw ere one Of those towns which are

compelled to advertise in the newspapers for a lawyer to come over andh elp them, a man would not needmuch more than his car fare ; butGrasstown sprang up on the Old original Oregon trail , has been in business at that stand for twenty years,and has, according to all the reports,h alf a dozen lawyers in active pract ice there . Bill Smith told youthatfour or five Of those lawyers are poor

O ld ch aps, who got to the Bar whena ll the law called for was a primitiveknowledge of the three R’s, and that

you can skin them to a frazzle .

Maybe so . You want to remember,[ 1 19 ]


though, that all those old men are

probably related, directly or indirectly, to every one in the community, andthat your business for a while willhave to come from the relations farremoved. The near blood will stillfigure on sticking to the Old men.

Still, if Grasstown can support sixlawyers, you are pretty safe in as

suming that it can support another

one, especially as it is in the midst ofan enterprising and but partially deveIOped agricultural country. Youcan see that youwill have to take alittle more money in with you in orderto play a waiting game

,in the hope

that something will turn up to put

youon your mettle and give you achance to demonstrate your ability.

I f youcan lick Old Uncle Ben everytime youmeet in court, why, Uncle

’

s

120 ]


show for it. Every one Of them,you

w ill find, is a notary public, and Iwant to tell you that you are go

ing to be surprised to find what anamount of ready revenue there is inbeing a notary . The real estate manismaking deeds, drawing notes, chattel mortgages, bills Of sale -in fact

,

h e'

is doing all the little things which

properly belong to a lawyer, and theincome from which would be morethan sufficient to keep a young law

yer going until bigger business comesin They examine abstracts, too, andrender informal opinions- and unlessthe abstract is full Of technicali tiesthose fellows can get a pretty goodline on it. If ever you get to wondering why those abstracts don

’

t comeinto your office to be examined, justtake a stroll

“

into the Offices of your

[ 122 ]


real estate friends and youwill seewhere they have lodged .

Further, the real estate man can

oblige youwith a legal form for al

most every emergency and every legalpurpose . They draw wills— and to

have a real estate man draw your willis just one shade worse than drawingit yourself. We don’t Object to theirdoing that . Not without significancewas the Old lawyer ’s toast to the testator who draws his own will . How

ever that may be, the fact remainsthat they are handling a lot Of smallmatters which are properly in yourjurisdiction

,and which, if youcould

get them, would very materially af

fect the amount Of capital youwould

have to take into the town with you.

In looking over a town , just take the

trouble to inquire into the real estate123 ]


situation. It will be important information for you in more ways thanone.

All these things, small and large,have something to say about aman’s prosperity

,and accordingly are

worthy to be considered in connection

w ith the matter of capital .

[ 124 ]

LETTER S TO A YOUNG LAWYER

heads are better than one. It helpsto minimize error for the two of youto go over your pleadings together.One will see a point that the otherwill not ; one will recall an essentialprinciple that the other has overlooked Or forgotten .

NO two men have exactly similartemperaments . Every man will makehis own circle Of acquaintanceship .

Through a partner, the lawyer is enabled to reach clients that he neverwould otherwise have come in touchwith . One Of the strangest and yetmost successful partnerships that Ihave ever known was formed betweena man who was a rigid teetotaler and

one who was frequently hovering on

the border line of sobriety and intox ication. The sober fellow was a firstclass student

,and as able as his years

I 126 ]


and ex perience would permit. The

other one seemed to get what law heknew by a peculiar process Of absorption . He was blessed, however, withex cellent reasoning powers, and had,moreover, considerable natural elo

quence. He could try a case verysuccessfully, although his partnerusually had to be on hand to prompthim when the tangle threatened to become technical and involved. Thisman was never found reading a lawbook, but he did love to splurge and

splutter to a jury. He had whatis called the oratorical temperament

,

and the constitutional indolence that

usually accompanies that gift .More than once I have seen thesteady boy struggling upstairs withhis partner hanging heavily on hisarm. Hewould cache him somewhere

[ 127 ]


in the back office, and in emergencieswould toss him into the clothes closet.I frequently dropped into their Office,and as I was a youngster amongyoungsters there was no attemptmade to conceal the skeleton in thecloset. One day we were sittingaround the Office, laughing ourselvesinto tears at the unbridled witticismsOf the boy who was in an early stageof intoxication— a period when hiswhole soul seemed to expand and hisgenius flow forth in a stream Of really brilliant conversation'Just then we heard a footstep in the

hall just outside the Office, and withone consent we leaped upon the or

ator and stowed him in the largeroomy closet where the coats werehung and any miscellaneous junkaround the office was stored . The

[ 1 28 ]


that the visitor would attribute thatto his being locked in the closet. Not '

wishing to trust himself to stand, hesubsided heavily into a chair, and explained that the lock had caught andlocked him in the closet. I though tthat perhaps he had been sobered up alittle ; but my heart sank when helaunched into a glittering panegyric

on liberty, and how dear to the prisoner immured in deepest dungeonwas the light Of the day and the

breath Of the morning, and so on.

Instead Of discovering his real condition, the good Old lady thought thathe was a very clever boy, and she

looked on him with something Of theexpression Of a fond mother with a

bright and precocious infant. Heskipped from one thing to anoth er,and wound up at last by repeating

[ 130 ]


whole reams of Tennyson’s In Memoriam'

so feelingly and meaninglythat the poor Old lady was compelledto dry her eyes more than once .

When we were alone we gave him thethird degree, and he confessed thathe never would have come out

,but he

thought he heard a mouse in thecloset, and mice, above everythingelse, he detested .

This rattle-brained fellow afterwards rose to high position in his natural field Of politics, and one Of hisfirst ex ercises Of power was to putthe Old reliable partner on the benchOf the United States Circuit Court .That was a partnership which

proved a happy one . There havebeen others which have ended almosttragically. I knew a young chap whotied up with a man who turned out to

[ 131 ]


be a thorough rascal . For a numberof years they held together, and

everything seemed to be going alongnicely. They were in a fair way ofbusiness

,and making a little above

their expenses . Every cent that myfriend could make he salted downagainst the time when he should bemarried . He was engaged to a verynice, good girl , and together theywatched the slowly growing nest egg.

One way and another, most Of theboy’s own money was in the partnership bank account and subject to

withdrawal by either partner . Th isarrangement cost him dearly

,for one

morning the worthless partner skipped the town, taking with him almostevery cent the other man had in theworld. Such instances , fortunately

[ 132 ]

LETTER X I I I

HERE are ways and

ways Of practicinglaw . One man can gointo a city— any cityyou like to think Of,

preferably a large one— without acent in his pocket and can commenceat once doing a law business . How'' ery easily. He will probably burna couple of weeks ’ desk room in somelaw Office . His next step is to go up

to the justice courts and get a bigbundle of blanks— forms Of Notices,Writs Of Garnishment and Attachment

,etc . He then proceeds to

breezily canvass for collections , andcan always succeed in coming backto the Office with a big batch Of badbills . From the various creditors he

[ 135 ]


has found out where each and everydebtor is employed ; then, seeing thathe needs the money and cannot waitfor excuses, he will not even take thetime to write a dunning letter, butwill immediately draw up his com

plaint,get out the writs Of garnish

ment,and by the end of his first week

he will have the salaries Of twentymen tied up .

This young man is thoroughlyworldly wise . Professional ethics isa matter of pleasant jest with him .

“Fine,

'

he will agree placidly, beautiful spirit ; good idea, you know.

But then those things were drawn upby a bunch of Old stiffs, who werewell established and could afford tofollow those rules, supposing theycare for them themselves . Not for

me . I can sit in this Office and rot,[ 136 ]


could be made the ground Of disbarment for soliciting legal work. Whilethe collection business is related to

the law business, it i s not peculiar tothe law . Many Of the most successful collection agencies are run bymenother than lawyers . It cannot, therefore, be a solicitation Of businessw ithin the meaning Of the disbarmentstatutes . Such statutes relate in moststates only to champerty and maintenance, and are almost useless ; foronly once in a lifetime do youhearOf a lawyer being disbarred for theinfraction of those ancient laws .There is one thing about the col

lection business that you may relyupon as being very true ; it is a barrelof undiluted trouble

,and the money

made in it is very hardly earned. I f

youare flooded with collections, you

[ 138 ]


will have no chance to practice law .

There will simply not be time enoughfor you to do so. Then, when youhave finally located a slippery debtor,and have him all nicely and securelygarnished, he will probably bob upwith a claim of exemptions

,and you

w ill be left holding the sack. In theWestern states

,where they have had

one or two Populist legislatures, youwill find the exemption laws extremely liberal to the debtor . I have no

quarrel with such liberality ; in fact,I think that such provisions are wiseand humane and just .There is a growing Opinion among

lawyers and laymen that the garnish

ment laws are much abused . Somecollection agencies take out theirwrits Of garnishment by the barrelful. It is a severe hardship to subject

139 I


a man and his family to the privationof having his salary denied him at

the end of a week, especially in viewof the fact that the court issuing thew rit of garnishment has not yet passed upon the merits Of the claim .

Under the present loose system, menand their families are made to sufferfor what frequently proves, upon thetrial , to have been an unjust claim .

NO bond is required to secure thew rit Of garnishment ; it is issued upon the affidavit Of the creditor or hisagent. I am decidedly Of the opinionthat, were it necessary to give bond .

for the justice and lawfulness Of theclaim upon which the writ is sued out,much injustice would, in some smallmeasure at least

,be averted .

Now,I do not desire youto become

a collection lawyer . That is a name

[ 1 40 ]


ster . The proper meaning of th is

disagreeable ep ithet is one who hangsaround the police courts, seeking todefend the petty criminals that come

up for trial there, and who is not aregularly admitted and practicing at

torney.

There are malcontents enoughthere is already too much unreasoning prejudice against the law for itspractitioners to ever, even in theirlightest moments

,allow themselves

to be heard alluding to it jestingly or

indiscreetly. DO not think that the

great body of our statutes and theirinterpretation is the meanest work Ofmen. Every law in the Code, everytrue and honest decision, is the expression Of the most serious and ear

nest thoughts a civilized communityentertains concerning the proper re

[ 142 ]


lations Of the i ndividual members Ofsociety one to another . The law isa truce between man and man

,under

which all agree to live, without whichthere must be everlasting discord andall the riot and confusion Of barbarism . Let the civil governmentchange as it may ; let it swing from atyranny to a republic and back again ;sti ll the legal system,

in its essenceand spirit, can never be abandoned .

The real enemies of society are themalicious and the thoughtless, whoconfuse the corrupt administration Oflaw with the pure spirit Of the law

,

and clamor for the abolition of the

wisdom and experience Of two thousand years .


jury’s ' How solemn a place thecourtroom becomes

,where all men,

regardless Of creed or race, may re

sort for the amelioration of theirwrongs and the enforcement of theirrights 'With what seriousness shouldour lawmakers inscribe the new and

necessary statutes upon the book Of

laws '

Nothing frivolous or trifling shouldbe permitted in the courtroom . How

truly they understood the dignity andsignificance Of court procedure whofirst made use of the term “contemp tOf court' ' Men may be and are frequently contemptuous in the presenceOf a sovereign or ruler ; but there isno punishment for such contempt . Aman is contemptuous Of his fellowmen ; on the street, in the market, inhis private relations ; even Of his par

[ 1 46 ]


ents and his family ; yet there is nostatutory punishment until his foolishconduct shames the dignity of theplace of law or the recognized templeof religion . There are three generations Of lawyers behind you, my boy,and it is my pride and pleasure tobe able to say that not one Of themever incurred the punishment for contempt Of court . In the conduct of acase, your patience and temper willbe severely tried. You will see falsehood and deceit gaining over yourjust cause ; the opposing counsel willmaliciously pervert the facts and distort the law ; he may even turn upon

youpersonally with vile insult or biti ng sneer ; but I hope and pray thatyour temper may not betray you intodescending to similar methods inreply.

[ 147 ]


Your grandfather’s carriage in thecourtroom was perfect. He was a

great lover of his cigar, yet he wouldnot enter a courtroom, even duringthe adjournment of court, with a

cigar in his mouth or in his hand.

I never saw him at any time in acourtroom with his hat on. The sightof a lawyer at the bar, during the

conduct Of a case, with cheeks bulging with chewing tobacco and pansing in his remarks to the judge to spit

a cOpious stream of black juice fromhis mouth, caused your grandfatherunutterable disgust. I have seen thebailiffs reading newspapers ; lawyerslolling over two or three chairs,yawning and gaping ; even the judgetilted back

,half dozing in his chair ;

yet your grandfather always enteredthe room and . took his seat with a

[ 148 ]


cases . Creatures Of that kind are tous what the lovers Of the gladiatoria larena were to the ancient Romans .

They come into the courtroom sni f

fing for blood, and hoping to be amused and regaled by the tears and woesof hapless sufferers . How they l icktheir foul muzzles when some shrinking woman tells of her ruin and

abandonment, or an aged parent confesses the disgrace of his only son '

The courts must be open to the public , yet it is a shame and a pity th atsuch a right should be abused by a lotof curious spectators, whose conductand presence confuse the witnesses

,

frequently bias the jurors ’ minds , anddestroy the whole solemnity and d igmity of a judicial proceeding.

There is no apparent remedy for

this,yet it becomes more than ever

[ 1 50 ]


the imperative duty Of every lawyerpresent to so comport himself withbecoming gravity and due regard tothe proceedings as to rebuke and correct the attitude Of the careless andthoughtless spectators .


The little village in Pennsylvania willh ave its full quota Of lawyers, whilein an Alaskan mining camp the law

yer will find himself for once a rarebird, and a gentlemanWhose servicesare much sought . With the later sett ling down Of the mining town, however, and the influx of business and

p rofessional men, prices of all things,merchandise and professional services alike, will of course sag.

In determining the amount of yourfees

, youmust generally be governed

by the prevailing amounts charged.

There are exceptional men who can

come into a small-pay community and

demand and receive their own scale

of prices . TO do that successfully

youmust be an able and ex periencedlawyer . If youcharge twenty dollarsmore than your neighbor does, you

[ 154 ]


must be prepared to render so muchmore value than he does .Remember that absolutely reliable

and honest legal advice, the adviceupon which a man may act immediately and safely, is hard to Obtain,even in a community where there aremany lawyers, and the man who renders such advice will soon find him

self in a position to charge almostwhat he pleases. You may hear mensay that Brown will charge them

twenty-five dollars for a matter Joneswill handle for five dollars ; but thenthey know that Brown will secure

their rights,and, if there are any

complications,he will more than earn

the ex tra amount paid .

Of course,in your pleadings you

may petition the court for almost anyamount

,knowing pretty well that it

[ 155 ]


is almost sure to be reduced. If youth ink you are entitled to all th at youask for, and ex pect to make a figh tto secure it, you must come into court

p repared to Offer evidence Of the reasonableness of the fee asked for .

In th is connection , I am reminded

Of a case I once had in which I desired to oppose the granting Of the

amount of attorney’s fee counsel forthe Opposite side was praying for. A

promissory note was being sued uponagainst my client, and, while we hadno defense to the action, I consideredthat the fee asked for in the com

p laint was most unreasonable. Thenote provided for a reasonableamount as attorney’s fee in case of

collection, rather than a stated sum.

Court Opened at half past one in the

a fternoon ; but, as this was a small

[ 156 ]


We had a visiting judge,and he

was glad Of that method of determining the question . Even then I did notcatch on

, but thought these wandering lawyers were all disinterested.

I did not think so when every mother’s son of them swore emphaticallythat my opponent’s demands were extremely reasonable, and that they al

ways got that much themselves , andone of them ingenuously volunteeredthe information that he once Obtaineda fifty dollar attorney’s fee on a

three hundred dollar note . Of course,I should have asked that the matter

be continued, when it was proposedto take testimony, so that I mighthave a chance to ‘ get some help formy side Of the question ; but, l ike thegood things you might have said inyour a fter-dinner speech, it did not

[ 1 58 ]


occur to me until it was too late. Imention this, so that youwill not gointo court unarmed to ask for or Op

pose an attorney’s fee .

There is not much danger of overcharging a client. Youhave to waitlong enough for the average fee towarrant your sticking a little on atthe end for interest .The young lawyer is doomed to do

a lot of what might be called charitywork. The shady case, that has beenon a continuous circuit Of law Officesfor the past ten years, will certainlydrift into your hands soon after youare established. People will rush to

you for advice, and you, scentingsome paying litigation, will Open yourheart and your lips

,only to receive

their promises Of bringing the matterto youif it develops into a case . If it

[ 1 59 ]


ever does become a cause of action,you will see it listed in the court bulletin under the name of some Olderand more pretentious lawyer thanyourself.Of course

,all your friends will

have to be taken care of for Old time ’ssake. This would not be so bad, if,when they got a real case

,they would

bring it into your office, instead of

giving it to an Older and better knownattorney. They will graft the smallthings Of the law off you, but theywon’t trust you when it comes to realmoney. Human nature, and the samespirit that sends the sick man to somegray-headed Old fraud, rather than abright and capable youngster 'In the days when there were fewerlawyers than there are now, the contingent fee was not regarded as

[ 160 ]


and immediate costs from a client .

Train them to put up enough to filethe complaint with the county clerk .

They will not be so likely to run Off

and take their case to another man ;and; furthermore, you would soon become bankrupt if you tied up all yourready money in advanced fees for

your clients .

[ 162 ]

LETTER XVI

O not think,because

you are in what is

known as a “code'

state, that you can beslipshod and careless

in the matter Of your pleadings withimpunity.

I have had considerable experience

with what is known as the commonlaw pleadings and also the code pleadings, and I am satisfied that the codesystem or method is superior to theOld .

' Many Of the Old-time lawyersare devotees of the Old-style pleadings . That is natural , and is just theattitude Of all human nature towardsthe new thing which experience and

antiquity have not yet authorized .

Code pleading is the child Of com

[ 163 ]


mon-law pleading, and to properlyuse and understand the child you

must be first well grounded in the

knowledge of the parent. For thisreason I think that your Dean doeswell in training the men carefully inthe forms and practices Of the Old

pleadings.

We owe code pleading to the English lawyers, who, Of course, morethan any others, w ere grounded inthe Old forms . The modern methodis a splendid refutation of the chargethat lawyers themselves are not pro

gressive, and will only act when thelay pressure becomes too strong for

them to resist.The common law tended to make a

man an ex act pleader . The troublewas that it penalized a client for the

mistake Of h is lawyer . When the

[ 164 ]


and there and once more anxiouslybrought it forth for inspection . Andso the process would be repeated overan interminable time

,until finally all

the formalities were complied with .

The tailoring was found perfect, andthe issue itself finally began to re

ceive a tardy consideration.

The Code abolishes these ancientand iron-clad forms, and requiresthat you state every cause Of actionin plain

,simple

,and concise language .

This is as it should be . But, in theseeming laxity and easiness of suchpleading

,the lawyer is Often entrap

ped into loose methods Of pleading,which will defeat his cause as surelyas if under the Old system he hadpleaded the wrong form .

The modern pleading frequentlybrings a. complaint into court smoth

[ 166 ]


ered in verbiage, clogged and cloakedwith matters Of evidence

,conclusions

Of law, and general remarks Of perhaps general literary interest

,but

certainly out of place in a pleading atlaw, very much suggestive Of an overdressed and over-ornamented woman .

Then follows a still hunt for the issue, which is known to be lurkingsomewhere in the depths Of that literary foliage .

Everybody joins in the search .

Opposing counsel sits up nights,rum

maging through the mess,hoping

that some lucky flash Of insight willreveal the real trouble . The judgetakes it into his chambers

,patient

man that he is, and pores and pondersover it till the gray shades of morning filter through the blinds . The

original pleader meanwhile sleeps the

[ 167 ]


sleep of the just, feeling that he hasdone his whole duty, and is a muchaggrieved individual when the courtfinally sustains the motion Of his opponent to make the complaint moredefinite and certain .

This is all wrong. The pleadershould let his issue come before thecourt like a maiden

,modestly and

sufficiently clad with necessary allegations to enable her to face a crowdedcourt without blushing and withoutfearing the critical inspection Of herenemies .The good pleader is a craftsman of

the first class . How he loves to chiseleach sentence ' How he likes to fiteach word into a perfect groove, untilhe has built a simple

,but substantial,

casket for his cause. Not a wordmisplaced ; not a line of unnecessary

[ 1 68 ]


to time come into the hands of prominent and successful lawyers, and willalso be closely scanned by learned anddistinguished judges, not to mentionthe host of smaller fry, such as clerksand so forth , through whose handseach pleading must pass . There is a

personality even in the mechanicalwork of the pleadings , and an ex pe

r ienced clerk can tell by merely looking at the form of a complaint fromwhich law Offi ce it has come .

I have known lawyers careless in

person and manners, yet who wouldrewrite a whole typewritten page of

p leading if by chance they made onesmall error in the writing. There isa suggestion of superiority in a good,clean

,correct page that never fail s to

impress the counsel upon whom it isserved . On the other hand, the law

[ 170 ]


yer who receives a dirty, carelesslywritten sheet, feels somehow that heis going to meet a third-rate lawyerin combat, and adjusts his mental attitude accordingly.

Of course, he is frequently mistaken in this ; but it is an example Ofthat peculiar psychological fact thatwe are impressed unfavorably by a

carelessly or sloppily dressed man,and favorably impressed by a veryinferior man who is well and neatlyattired.

Let all your stationery be neat . A

good plan is to have your letter head,your corner card on your envelopes

,

and your business card of a uniformtype and style Of printing. Have theprinter show you his samples in thisl ine, and do not be ashamed to imitatethe style Of a first-class lawyer

,when

[ 1 71 ]


it appears to be the perfection of

neatness . These all are little things ;but life is composed of small matters,and proper attention to the lesser insures success and satisfaction in the

greater.

[ 1 72 ]


dining like Dives in the heigh t of hisprosperity.

They may not know it, but this isjust the reason that keeps many agood man plodding hopefully alongthrough dusty years Of near-poverty .

Your good luck may come to you instrange ways

,in ways you will not at

first recognize, and you may evenshut the door in its face . Let me illustrate 'One day I was sitting in my little

office wondering how I was ever go

ing to get enough money to marryyour mother and do all the things Iwanted to do . The door had justclosed on the agent for the building,who had come to remind me that the

rent was a month in arrears ; a factthat I was unfortunately only too wellaware of.

[ 174 I


This agent was a mighty decentchap . He explained, however, thathe had reached the point where hecould not carry any more of these in

fant industries,as he called them , on

his rent roll . He said he had carrieda young architect for over a year,hoping that the tide would turn andhe would be able to pay the rent .Two or three young dentists hadworked out their indebtedness by filling his teeth

,and a young doctor had

won the right to a month ’s Office rentby attending the agent’s child withthe measles . But the managementwere shouting for their dividends,and all these young professional menmust pay their rent or be requestedto leave .

The prospect was gloomy,very

gloomy. I was too worried to study,

[ 1 75 ]


and got up and paced up and downthe floor

,j ingling together the two

large silver dollars that representedmy entire earthly fortune .

It was getting towards evening,and I could hear the doors banging inthe corridors and the feet Of the

clerks hurrying by to their homes andtheir evening’s amusement. I almostenvied them their contentment andtheir certainty of a weekly salary.

There was a shuffling of feet outside my door, and a dark shadowwavered in front of the frosted panea moment as if making up its mindwhether to come in ornot. Evidentlyit decided to take a chance, for thedoor was timidly opened and a manentered . He was an Old man w itha puffed and dissipated face, and a

straggling gray moustache dyed

[ 176 ]


him . My visitor became more autobiographical .

“Looking at me now, he said

thickly, waving his cigarette as if todisperse the smoke thoroughly overthe room,

“you would not think Ihad been to Harvard

,would ye '

Well, I was . I was at Harvard College three days , and I didn

’t donothin’ but play poker. Finally I

cleaned up two hundred dollars andwent home, an

’ says,‘Father,

’ saysI,

‘I can ’t stay up to college ; there’s

too much cards there .

’

SO I quit . '

Then he had. an afterthought .But ye see, he said proudly,

“I hadto have some eddication in the firstplace to get there

,didn’t I ''

From that he went on to tell mehow his grandfather was a rich manback in Pennsylvania ; how he loved

[ 1 78 ]


this man, my visitor, as a child ; howhe called the boy to his bedside andtold him that, if he were only tenyears Older, he would leave the brewery to him ; and how on many bitternights my visitor had wept

,thinking

what he had missed by not inheritingthe brewery.

Finally, getting down to business,h e told me that the grandfather hadleft a big estate to his son,

my visitor

’

s father,with the provision that

the residue Of the estate was to descend to the issues, as he called thechildren

, Of his father . “And

,

' heconcluded, pointing to his tobaccostained vest,

“I am one of the issues . '

I questioned him a little, and beganto get interested I found that hehad been advised by the lawyers backthere that his share Of the father ’s

[ 1 79 ]


estate was seven thousand dollars andthat the money was waiting in thebank for his order. Would I makethe order out and attend to it forhim' He believed in helping younglawyers

,as he had a brother who was

a young lawyer once,“and,

' he added

,

“young lawyers aren’t Old enoughand wise enough to be as crooked as

the Old ones always are . '

I f I got the money for him , hewould give me five hundred dollars .I could trust him

,he said. Every

body called him “Honest Tim,

'

and

he would go twenty blocks to pay aman a dollar if he owed him .

Well , I wrote out an agreementwhereby he was to hire me to collectthe money and was to pay me fivehundred dollars on the successful collection of the legacy. Would Honest

I 180 ]


finally something or other hypnotizedme, and I parted with all my moneyfor Tim’s signature. Then I had to

go and borrow enough to buy my supper. When Tim had gone, I blamedmyself for a gullible fool, and seriously thought Of asking a lunacy commission to determine my fitness toconduct my own affairs .I wrote a letter to the lawyers he

named, and they replied they did notknow him . I forgot all about thematter until a week or two later

,

when a trust company wrote me thatthey had seen my letter to the Pennsylvania lawyers and assured me thatTim had the money coming to him.

Judge of my surprise when I foundTim’s legacy was seventeen thousanddollars

,instead Of seven thousand.

Tim was honest, all right, for I

I 182 ]


made one thousand five hundred dollars out Of that deal and later, whenTim died of chron1c alcoholism

,I

made a good fat fee probating his estate . You never know ; and you see,my boy, sometimes it pays to take achance. I nearly turned gray whenI thought how close I had come tothrowing Tim and a fortune out Ofmy office door together.


trial that the police officers will veryably look after the interests Of the

state. Every man should be given afair and impartial trial , and you aredoing no less than your sworn dutywhen you see that in points Of evidence and law a man, however guilty,does not suffer injustice .

In some jurisdictions the penalty isreduced when the criminal pleads

guilty to the charge and spares thecounty the expense Of the trial . I amnot heartily in favor of putting a

premium upon confessions, becausean innocent man , against whom theevidence is almost overwhelming,may fear to suffer the severer punishment resulting from trial and convietion . Where such is the practice, youshould satisfy yourself thoroughlythat the prisoner’s story warrants the

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serious consideration of the twelvejurors .DO not aspire to be a big criminal

lawyer . NO man can be truly eloquent who feels that his client isguilty and worthy Of punishment .The successful criminal lawyer frequently is an adept at the creation Of

evidence . He will manufacture alibis,

bribe witnesses and jurors,and stop

at nothing to clear his man . You see,

he is in the business of aiding guiltymen to escape their just deserts

,and

in more ways than one is frequentlya partner in crime with them . Fleesuch business as you would the bu

bonie plague .

Of course, there is frequently bigmoney in defending criminals, but donot allow that to tempt you. Be con

tent to plod along as a plain, honest

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lawyer, content to await the surerand better rewards that come in a

good clean practice .

' eep down your fixed charges. Be

content to hire a small and cheap of

fice to start with . DO not buy yourOffice furniture on the installment

p lan, in order to gain a lot of cheapshowy stuff. It may mortify you tosee a van back up to your door someday and cart the stuff ignominiouslyaway for failure to pay the installment.

Some men think that they must puton lots of show to get business, not

only in the law, but in dentistry and

medicine .

' Highly ornate quarters arethe hallmark of the fake . Some of

fices I have been into have cheap,highly varnished desks, the drawersof which will not work w ithout

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impression on everybody. Youmaynot think it, but with all our commercialism and up-to-dateness, the younglawyer is watched pretty closely, andmen have certain standards for himof dress and conduct and mannerswhich he is expected to Observe .

DO not smoke during Office hours .Remember it is Offensive to lots ofpeople

,and very impolite to expect

ladies to enter a room that resemblesthe smokehouse Of a packing plant .Now, the cigarette is probably harmless enough ; but there is a pronounced disapproval Of its use in this country, and while I do not believe in aman’s truckling to public sentiment inmatters Of weight or principle

, where

he feels he ought honestly not to,still

in the matter of light pleasures it ismore noble to conform than to revol t .

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Join one or two good orders, if youth ink you would enjoy that form ofsocial recreation . The lodge room isworked to a frazzle by lawyers in

search of business . Don’t think byjoining the Crows

,for instance, that

you are going to get a big rush Of

clients . You will find nearly halfyour brethren are lawyers or doctorsin quest Of dollars .Still, it is wise to join some insur

ance order, take out a little insurance,and make friends . The lodge is agood thing

,and profitable in many

ways,if indulged in judiciously. I f

you are going to be a politician, youshould start systematically to collecta string Of Obligations and signs and

grips enough to make you at homew ith any man in any place .Don’t join the church for business

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reasons . ' eep one place where youcan come and go in absolute sincerity.

Enter the church where you feel mostconformity with its ‘doctrine . Evenif you cannot subscribe to all the articles Of its creed, make a practice Of

joining in some form of public worship each week. The proper Observance of Sunday has kept many an

overstrained mind from insanity.

If youmust drink to Obtain business

,forego the business . You will

be solicited by all sorts and conditionsof men to join them in drinking, andtheywill feel offended if you refusebut refuse . Don’t think they will respect you more for not drinking. Not

they. The psychology Of the drink

er’s mind is this ' He wants to see allmen share his weakness, and hatesthe silent disapproval implied in a re

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Letters to a Young Lawyer - Forgotten Books

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Transcript of Letters to a Young Lawyer - Forgotten Books