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

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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

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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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'l'lll'I YAI.l'l SlllNKll.l'1. 21 pushed the book over to me, whispering, Don't object to that question, there is the statute which covers it and makes it admissible. A less noble soul would have waited till I had stated my objection and then annihilated My young friend, whose ignor- ance of the statutes is only equalled by his ignorance of the law in general. So I say, keep your practice up to a high stone, it is the noblest in the world. Let me tell you what Chief Justice Andrews says of it: It is not enough for an attorney that he be hon- est. He must be that and more. He must be believed to be honest. It is absolutely essential to the usefulness of an attorney that he be entitled to the confidence of the community wherein he practices. If he so conducts in his profession that he does not deserve that confidence, he is no longer an aid to the court nor a safe guide to his clients. A lawyer needs, indeed, to be learned. It would be well if he could be learned in all the learning of the schools. There is nothing to which the wit of man has been turned that may not become the subject of his inqui- ries. Then, of course, he must be specially skilled in the books and the rules of his own profession and he must have prudence and tact to use his learning, and foresight, and industry. and courage. But all these may exist in a moderate degree and yet he may be a creditable and useful member of the profession, so long as the practice is to him a clean and honest func- tion. But possessing all these great faculties, if once the practice becomes to him a mere 'brawl for hire, or a system of legalized plunder where craft and not