I know--we all know--of
very eminent lawyers constantly engaged in causes involving large
interests, who nevertheless find leisure, many times each year, to
serve by advice and counsel, and sometimes even by the active conduct
of cases, numbers of the children of poverty, and to serve them
without a penny of compensation.
Be very careful of the class of business you accept at first. I knew a
young lawyer who had just opened his office, and within a month, by
one of those accidents that occur to every attorney, he was offered a
case on a contingent fee in which the probability of considerable
reward amounted almost to a certainty.
He needed the money--was nearly penniless. He was newly married, had
no clients and few acquaintances; but it was not the quality of
practise to which he wished to devote his career. He courteously
declined the case as though he had been a millionaire, and directed
his would-be client to an attorney who would care for it properly.
Out of that case the latter attorney, by a compromise, in two weeks
made fifteen hundred dollars. Nevertheless, the young man was right,
and acted with a far-seeing wisdom as rare as the courage which
accompanied it.
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