University of Nebraska College of Law - Yearbook (Lincoln, NE)

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lawyers are those who so practice their profession that their clients are given right advice and are properly taken care of, even if other lawyers and the public are ignorant of it. A lawyer who is thor- oughly grounded in the law by adequate preparation and enlighten- ing experience, and who does in the best way whatever business is confided to him, is truly successful whether his practice is large or small, or its money returns great or little, and whether his success is appreciated by others or not. It may not be given to a man to make the public, or even his fellow lawyers, concede his genuine success, but the kind of success which deserves such concession may still be his. The last mentioned kind of success should precede all other kinds. It has indeed to exist before one's fellow lawyers reward it with their respect and honor 3 but, unfortunately, it is not always a prerequisite either to public homage or to a lucrative practice. Not to deserve public recognition of success is, however, to be continu- ally in peril of losing it, while to deserve it is a great aid toward its attainment. In the law business, as elsewhere, it is true that the race is not always awarded to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but there, as elsewhere, one should expect to win only by deserving to do so. T The first aim of the young lawyer should be to earn all the kinds of success we have been considering. Having the proper preparation, and feeling within himself the competency to deal prop- erly with legal business problems, he should so conduct himself as to deserve the praise of his fellow lawyers and of the public. Then, whether he gets that praise or not, he will have the reward of virtue at least, and may reasonably hope for much more. ' fiyp . H1557 ff' my, -Q1-I.: . 5, .,-- ggi: 55- 'I hr - 4 T ' - -N ef f 92

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THE SUCCESSFUL L.-XYVYER BY ifnoressorz GEORGE in cos'r1oixN, Jn. lt is of the first importance for a lawyer to make up his mind early in his legal career what kind of professional success he will seek, and what he will have to do to achieve that success. As early as possible a law student should give the matter serious attention. Success is a relative term, and, as applied to business, has many different meanings, Only a few of the special meanings applicable to the legal profession will be considered here. To the public, a successful lawyer is one who has a large and lucrative practice. Every lawyer is eager for that kind of success, and the great problem is how to get it. That problem is too large to be gone into here, but we may pause to note that what the modern business world demands of a lawyer is a combination of legal at- tainment with sagacious business insight. The lawyer of today is more an attorney-a legally trained agent-than he is strictly a lawyer. Business conditions have so changed, indeed, that in our big cities there are many large corporations which have capable lawyers in their employ as salaried clerks. ln a word, the legal profession is changing into a law business. Good legal training the lawyer of today must have, but practical business sense must sup- plement that training before he can meet the needs of a large mod- ern clientage. A lawyer who possesses both these requisites, and who nnds a reasonable opportunity to make that fact known, should have many clients. But there are a number of truly successful lawyers who do not seem to the average man to be such. Take, for instance, the rather growing class of lawyers' lawyers. By a lawyer's lawyer is meant a man who is so thoroughly competent to transact legal business that his fellow lawyers respect and honor his professional ability. One who attains such proficiency in any profession as to receive the praise of those learned in his profession is essentially a success, and it is increasingly true that this kind of a success is often the possession of one whom the general public regards as unsuccessful. No matter how small a lawyer's practice may be, his aim should be to earn the plaudits of his fellow lawyers. But many lawyers are successful, in a real sense of the word who are not known to be so even by their fellow lawyers. Such 91 7

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TRAINING IN ARGUMENTATION AS PREPARATION FOR EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION oF' LEGAL ARGUMENT BY PROFESSOR M. M. FOGG To think-to pursue subjects in one's mind-to line up and follow down trains of firmly knit argument,-this is hard work and the rarest of sports.. But it continues ever to be a bit unpop- ular with what Carlyle calls your ordinary Hbipedf' Hard think- ing keeps falling upon evil days. Ever have We with us samples of the suicidal youth-a rarer bird at Nebraska than at some older colleges-who, knocking at the college gate, says, Help me to dis- cipline all I am and hope to be for the stern strife of life, and then sedulously busies himself concocting Ways and means to cheat him- self out of his birthright, to commit intellectual suicide! As the 93