We all remember Agassiz's famous reply to a proposition to deliver one lecture for a large fee: "I must decline, gentlemen; I have no time to make money." That was why he was Agassiz.
Quite as lofty ideals should inspire the work of those who make their vows to the greatest of all sciences, the science of justice, and the greatest of all arts, the art of adjusting the rights of men. No lawyer can become great who does not resolve, at the beginning of each case, to make his conduct of it a perfect piece of work, regardless of compensation.
John M. Butler, the partner of Senator McDonald, and one of the best lawyers the Central Western states ever produced, was so careful of pleadings and briefs that he would not endure a blurred or broken letter, and bad punctuation was a source of real irritation to him. Many times have I, as his clerk, required his printer to take out an indistinct letter. It was Mr. Butler's ideal to achieve perfection as nearly as possible.
The most perfect legal argument I ever heard occupied less than an hour. Not a word was wasted. Not a single digression weakened the force of the reasoning. Not a decision was read from. It was assumed that the learned judges before whom the cause was being heard knew something of the law and the decisions themselves.
You see the same thing in its highest form in Marshall's decisions. I once advised a class of law students to commit to memory half a dozen of Marshall's greatest opinions. After years of reflection I think I shall stand by that advice.
In making an argument before a court or jury, remember that the most important thing is the statement of your case. A case properly stated is a case nearly won. Beware of digression. It calls attention from your main idea. It is a fault, too, which is well-nigh universal. I advise every young lawyer, as a practise in accurate thought, to demonstrate a theorem of geometry every morning.
There is no such remorseless logic as that of logarithms. It will produce a habit of definiteness, directness, and concentration invaluable to you. The young gallants of a century ago used to practise fencing for an hour each morning. Why should not you do the same thing in intellectual fencing—you, the devotee of the noblest swordsmanship known to man, the swordsmanship of the law?
Do not waste too much time quoting precedents to a court; it produces weariness rather than conviction on the part of the judge, who himself is a daily maker of decisions and knows their value. He knows the stifling mass of precedents, and sighs under them. It is rare that more than two cases should be cited in oral argument on any given point. Those cases ought to be the most controlling you can find—not necessarily the latest. They should be cases decided upon reason rather than upon authority. Your true judge likes to syllogize.
Do not, however, go into a court without having thoroughly reviewed and mastered all the precedents bearing on every phase of your proposition. It requires desperate labor to do this and will shorten your life; but such is the hard fate of the profession you choose, and such is the condition of our absurd system of multiplying reports.
Do not be what is known as a "case lawyer"—an attorney who does not know the law as a science, but merely looks up precedents and texts concerning a particular case. You may prevail in your "lawsuit," but you will not be a lawyer. Stick close to the elemental Blackstone. You can never get along without Blackstone. Do not read a condensed edition of that great commentator; it is like reading expurgated Shakespeare.