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

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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

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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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dean of Harvard College finds him, he wants to lie abed and have his studies sent up to himf, He it is who, when a tough piece of headwork confronts him, collapses. He hates to- work -George Ade hits him off-Hand it hurts his Eyes to Read Law, but on a clear Day he can be heard a Mile, so he became a Statesman. Legal argumentation is simply everyday argumentation under special conditions, and for effectiveness it depends upon the same elements-the same principles of rhetoric that make for clearness and for interest, the same general rules of evidence, and the same laws of logic. Training for one is training for the other. The coming lawyerwho faithfully trains himself in the prin- ciples of argumentation comes to his work in legal argument pos- sessed by several ideas. He knows that clear and virile writing and speaking depend upon clear and virile thinking-thinking that clariu lies rather than beclouds, that does n't befog a shriveled idea in a mist of words. He knows that nailed-down facts are the bottom, if not also the top and sides, of every case. He knows he must first of all be master of his case 5 that he must analyze it-hew his way through chunks of facts to the heart of the matter, to the pivotal issue, and thereon take his stand and thereon fight his fight. He knows, too, that he must give his case structure, that it must not begin nowhere in particular, meander about babblingly and end where it began, completing the circle of its incompetency. He knows, too, that he can't treat an audience, even the court, as a clairvoyant, but that he must so put together his material that it is clear what every sentence is there to do, what business every para- graph is there to dispatch, In Huxley's theory of style he takes great stock, say what has to be said in language on each word of which you can stand cross-examination. As for his own head- well, he remembers that, as a great teacher of English composition concludes, the human head is normally muddled. Training in argumentation disciplines the future lawyer to present his case with vigor as well as with lucidity and exactness. It stimulates him to hunt for the inevitable phrase-the phrase that thrusts-and for the concrete, and here he reads his Burke, the G-rua FEELJNES, Hffan-r5, Ama A55or::fvrmra5 HF THE BHR IN GENERAL HA-VE A VERY I-lF1.PPY INFLUENEE LIPDN THE 1:HARHl:TER?'- KENNEDY 94