Senator McDonald, an
ideal lawyer in the ethics, learning, and practise of his profession,
told me that one of the justices of the Supreme Court once said to him
of a certain great corporation lawyer of acknowledged power and almost
unrivaled learning:
"Mr. ---- would be the greatest lawyer in the world if he were not a
scoundrel. As it is, I brace myself to resist him every time he
appears before me." One of the ablest Circuit Court judges of the
Federal bench said almost precisely the same thing to me of the same
man.
So you perceive it does not pay to be understood to be capable, or
even great, in the wrong. In time it means ruin; and therefore I
think, on the whole, that it would be wise for you never to take a
cause which, after you have a full statement from your client, you
believe to be wrong.
Many of the most excellent men of our profession will dissent from
this view. Their argument is usually that of Lord Brougham, summarized
above. Also they will declare that a lawyer may be quite wrong in his
first impression that his client has not the right of an impending
controversy. They will cite you instances where they have entered into
the conduct of a case with much doubt in their hearts as to the
rightfulness of their client's position; but that this doubt became an
affirmative certainty before they were half through with it--they
_knew_ their client was right.
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