Yale University Law School - Yale Law Reporter Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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'l'lIIi YAl.l'l SI-IIXULIC. I9 hand, be sure it is your own fault if they do not keep you as an experienced one. When you go into an office, determine to make yourself so indispensable to the firm that they cannot get along without you. XVhen you have done that, you can dictate your own terms. To be able to do a little better than the average means success, to do a little worse,-fail- ure. The coefficient of success is very small, but very powerful. It is said that the profession is over- crowded. Perhaps it is, with attcmrneys-at-law-it isn't with lawyers. And there never was such a demand as there is now for men to start in ofhces as clerks on a living salary. But the men wanted for these positions are men of active minds and original ideas, men of common sense as well as of sound legal theories. In short, men just a little superior in ability to the average. If you get in an office and are told to do a thing, do not be content when like a mere machine you have done that particular thing. Keep your mind alert while doing it, and something may occur to you that hasn't occurred to your employer. VVork it out on your own hook, and show him you can use your trained mind as it was intended it should be used. You will probably be asked to look up evi- dence on particular points in a ease. Nine times out of ten, you will, if you are of the right stuff, develop some other point which may win your ernployer's case. Then your prospects will be greatly improved. Let me repeat myself. When you go into an ofhce make yourself so indispensable to the firm that they can not get along without you. I must say one thing more to all of you which I

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IS Tllli YALIC SIIINGLE. Naturally none of us knew much about married women except Foster, who alone had reduced one to pos- session. Yet you mastered that subject much better in law than most men do in life, and if you don't know all about married women now, console your- sclvcs, nobody ever does. Once fairly under way, you immediately asserted your right to the proud position as the only class that ever ran a champion base ball team. I fear there may have been some hard feeling before we parted company in Junior year. I trust, however, that you have forgotten the seamy side of last .Iune's examinations. I cannot hope to follow Judge Townsend in writ- ing an article full of advice, nor do I think it neces- sary to do so. You probably wouldn't follow his advice, I'm sure you wouldn't follow mine. For advice from a live year old smacks too much of the grape. Let me stay bottled and work awhile longer before being uncorked and served to such eonnoisseurs. Only the other day a kind-hearted old farmer passed me on the street after a trial in which I took part. He had listened patiently in the jury-box while I talked earnestly to him and eleven other equally bored jurymen for an hour. As he passed, he stopped, and shaking hands, said: Young man, you did blamed well for a beginner. I s'pose you never was in court before. If I can not advise you as a lawyer, yet I may give you a few points as a clerk. Many of you will begin your practice as clerks in large offices. See to it that you make the most of your opportunities. If your employers want you enough to take you as a green

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29 Tllli YALE SlllNGl.li. wish you could feel as deeply as I feel it. In your practice you can never qfora' to be less than gentle- men. ' You will soon be members of an honored pro- fession--of a manly profession. See that you quit yourselves like men in your conduct of it. You will need to be strong to do this. In your early practice, the temptation will be great to descend to the level of your probable opponents and be a blackguard against a blackguard. Stop at 'l'ouehstone's first degree of good manners, give the Retort Courteous, avoid the Reply Churlish. I never felt more highly compli- mented in my life than when, in a trial where I was counsel, a juryman told me he had never seen a trial conducted in a more gentlemanly manner. I do not mean that you should remain quiet and submissive under your opponent's attacks. By no means. Kill him if nec-essary, but do it with a rapier, not a hatchet. Cultivate a high tone in your profession. You have chosen a life where you must iight your best friends every day. Fight fair, don't hit below the belt, or when your antagonist is on the ropes or down. Then when you whip him, he will think well of you: if he whips you, he will still respect you. As long as I live I shall remember a kind act which a great and gentlemanly lawyer did to me. It was in the heat of a trial, an important witness was testifying. My opponent asked a question which seemed to me clearly inadmissible under the common law of evidence. 1 was just about to jump up and object in no uncertain tones when he leaned over and whispered, Wz1it a minute. Ipaused. He opened the statutes and