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77/¿? Green Bag.
his case. He entertains contempt for his ad versary and is confident of victory. He has little taste or tact. He is deliberately guilty of the dangerous and unjustifiable perform ance of "traveling out of the record." He has an irrepressible belief in himself. If a judge asks him a question he replies in lan guage similar to that which I once actually heard from the lips of a young attorney: "I don't wonder this case troubles your honors; it troubles me." This is the man who boasts that he never took a senior but once, which deflection he occasionally alludes to in argu ment,—"And now, your honors, let me em ploy another illustration. Let me assume the case of a young attorney who employs senior counsel and the senior keeps all the fees." This young barrister is satisfied with his own effort: the dissatisfaction will come when the court punctures his platitudes. 3. —The man who pities the judges. This man is in middle life. When about thirty years of age he forsook his vocation— clerkship, trade or whatever it was—in which he was competent and at which he earned a living, to become a poor lawyer. The only person who is not aware of this last fact is himself. The judges are in his opinion so ignorant that he feels charged with the duty of offering enlightenment. Destitute of felicity of delivery or expression, he proceeds to read elementary law to his tired but patient hearers; and when, having begun a sentence, "This was a case," the Chief Justice breaks in "Read only the parts which are pertinent," he believes the interruptions inspired by jeal ousy of his attainments. He concludes his argument with no diminution of pity for the Court. And yet he is not a bad man. He practises his profession within his limitations and without violation of his initial oath. The only persons he has ever wronged are the judges before whom he appears. 4.—The learned and logical advocate. This man is in every sense a lawyer. He marshals the facts carefullv in his brief and
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states the law so as to bring his facts clearly within it. He rarely refers to a book. He is a master of deduction. He never speaks over thirty minutes, even though the case involve interests of moment and magnitude. He employs a conversational tone; and, if the Court interrogates, he has a ready and pertinent answer. Of him it may bt said that brevity is the handmaid of brains. 5.—The man who submits on brief. This man has no great confidence in his powers of persuasion. He is a logician. He reasons that the judges must necessarily for get in consultation much of the arguments they have just heard, as they have to hear on the average four or five cases a day, and also that the judge who writes the opinion must largely take as his guide in any event the printed page. Hence this attorney submits a well-expressed and compact ' brief. He more often wins than loses. If the bull may be pardoned, the most eloquent of all dis putants is the man who submits on brief. When the Court is in session the Reporter sits with the Clerk. As has been observed, while the arguments are going on his duties are light. The lines of the Scotch punster in imitation of Hood are now hardly applicable: "With fingers weary and worn, With wig askew on his head, A Reporter sat, at his lonely work, Plying his cedar and lead— Write! Write! Write! In his desk by the side of the Court, And thus he bemoaned the pitiful plight Of him who is doomed to report." The Reporter keeps a docket, in which he enters the names of counsel and the disposi tion of the cases. It has long been the cus tom to give in the printed volumes only the last names of counsel in full; so when a woman first appeared before the Court I wrote her to the effect that her name would be published in full, so that it might appear
