If you can be so fortunate as to get the firm or attorney with whom
you are studying to let you draft pleadings, take depositions, examine
witnesses, make arguments to court and jury, get out transcripts for
appeal, write briefs, petitions, motions, and all the rest of that
careful and painstaking work which makes the daily life of the lawyer,
you will equip yourself for actual practise better than in any other
way I know of.
The firm will gladly let you do this work if you show yourself
competent. But this does not mean that you are merely to sit around
the office and say "bright things." There is nothing in "bright
things"--there is everything in good judgment and downright hard work.
In active practise never forget that you are a sworn officer of
justice quite as much as is the judge on the bench. It is impossible
for you to put your ideals of your profession too high or to attach
yourself to them too firmly. I am no admirer of the acidulous
character of John Adams (not that he was not both great and good,
however, for he was--but he was too sour), yet he announced a great
thing, and lived up to it, when he declared that he was practising law
for the purposes of justice first and a living afterward.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188