Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/150

 What One has to Learn to be a Lawyer By Eououn Invmo LA Beware

HEN a boy begins to think about choosing his serious vocation in life he ﬁnds very little deﬁnite informa tion to help him in making the choice.

Most of us waste a lot of time before we hit upon the occupation for which we

are best ﬁtted.

This is often unavoid

able, but in the case of the professional

man there is very little time to waste. The purpose of this article is not to draw men into a somewhat crowded

profession by extolling the glories of a

your elders, and that you sustain your contradictions with aggressiveness and

skill, does not necessarily signify that you will one day be a member of the Supreme Bench. Let us inquire into some of the things that are really essential

to the successful lawyer. The authority just quoted gave as the mental attributes the lawyer should possess, "the power of clear logical thinking, with the in tellectual grasp that enables one to take in many-sides of a situation readily,

life at the bar, but to show those who are

and to distinguish between problems thinking of becoming lawyers some of which look alike but are not; a keen the difficulties they will encounter, with sense of justice, and enough common hints for overcoming them. And when sense to know instinctively, at least in I say, “those who are thinking of becom a general way, what is right for a man ing lawyers," I mean lawyers who intend to do and what is wrong." to practise their profession. I have not A writer in a legal periodical says: the space to speak of the law as an asset "The law is an intensely intellectual to the business man or the politician. profession, and the successful study First, what are the natural qualiﬁ of our jurisprudence requires the mastery cations that a lawyer should possess? and control of one's intellectual pro Conversation with those who are pre cesses, and the development of one's paring men for the bar shows that the reasoning faculties, to a degree that lay mind is permeated to an absurd is ordinarily attained only after long extent with the mistaken idea that the disciplinary study." Thus we see that argumentative boy is cut out by nature success at the bar rests upon something for a jurist. “I receive letters from more solid than an unwillingness to fond parents almost every day," said the dean of one large law school, “telling

me that their sons will make ﬁne lawyers because they are always arguing. There never was a greater mistake. These people think that a lawyer spends his

time disputing in a court room.

As a

matter of fact, even court lawyers, who

are a very small part of the legal pro

fession, do about four-ﬁfths of their work outside of court." Remembering then that the mere

fact that you are fond of contradicting

admit oneself -in the wrong and an ability to give to the wrong the sem blance of the right.

Accepting the idea that the law is a scholarly profession, how shall we pre

pare for it? There are two roads open. You may prepare for your bar examina

tion either by attending a law school or by “reading" law in an ofﬁce. The former method is preferable and today about seventy per cent of our lawyers

come to the bar by way of the schools. In

many

cases,

however,

the

latter