Abraham Lincoln owed his sound knowledge of law to grim, zealous industry. As a storekeeper he studied Blackstone out of shop-hours, perched on a wood-pile or lying under a tree. On circuit, in the bedroom of the village inn, a candle at his head and his feet protruding over the foot-board of his bed, he lay reading law until two in the morning, undisturbed by snoring comrades. When possible, he would read aloud, for thus, he said, “two senses catch the idea. First, I see what I read; second, I hear it, and can therefore remember it better.” In after-life to every student who came near him his advice was, “Work! work! work!”
Advocacy is indeed a life of industry. Each new success brings greater toil. Campbell, writing home from the Oxford Circuit, describes the weary round of his daily task. Some advocates suffer thus every day the court sits, whilst others sit round and suffer envy.
“I ought to have got so far to-night on my way to Hereford, but we have a long day’s work before us, and I shall be obliged to travel all to-morrow night. You can hardly form a notion of the life of labour, anxiety, and privation which I lead upon the circuit. I am up every morning by six. I never get out of court till seven, eight, or nine in the evening, and, having swallowed any indifferent fare that my clerk provides for me at my lodgings, I have consultations and read briefs till I fall asleep. This arises very much from the incompetence of the judge. It is from the incompetency of judges that the chief annoyances I have in life arise. I could myself have disposed of the causes here in half the time the judge employed. He has tried two causes in four days. Poor fellow, he is completely knocked up.”
An advocate must study his brief in the same way that an actor studies his part. Success in advocacy is not arrived at by intuition. Mr. O’Brien, in his excellent biography of Charles Russell, details an interesting conversation with his hero which enforces this truth. He had raised the question of an advocate succeeding by mere intuition in picking up the threads of a case in court, when Russell interrupted him in a characteristic phrase.
“‘That’s all nonsense,’ he said. ‘You don’t know anything by intuition. You have to work hard and to think hard. I get some good help, as I tell you. My mode of work is this: One of these young men reads the brief and makes a note—a full one. I go through the note with him’ (smiling), ‘cross-examining him, if you like. Sometimes, I admit, it may not be necessary for me to read the brief; the note may be so complete, and the man’s knowledge of the case so exact, that I get everything from him. But it often is—in fact, generally is—necessary to go to the brief. You have seen me reading briefs here. I admit that I am quick in getting at the kernel of a case, and that saves me some trouble; but I must read the brief with my own eyes, or somebody else’s.’
“I said, ‘Sir John Karslake went blind because he could only read his brief with his own eyes. It is a great point to be able to read your brief with somebody else’s eyes!’
“Russell—‘Well, well, well, that’s so! but it is not intuition.’
“I said, ‘It has been said that O’Connell never read his brief when he appeared for the defendant. He made his case out of the plaintiff’s case.’
“Russell—‘I don’t think that is likely; I think O’Connell knew his case—the vital points in his case—before he went into court. There is often a great deal in a brief which is not vital, which is not even pertinent. I can read a brief quickly; I can take in a page at a glance, if you like; I can throw the rubbish over easily, and come right on the marrow of the case. But I can only do that by reading the brief, or by the help of my friends. I learn a great deal at consultations; I am not above taking hints from everybody, and I think carefully over everything that is said to me’ (holding his hand up with open palm); ‘I shut out no view. If I have a good point, it is that I can see quickly the hinge on which the whole case turns, and I never lose sight of it. But that is not intuition, my friend; it is work.’”
Industry in reading and book-learning may make a man a good jurist, but the advocate must exercise his industry in the double art of speaking and arranging his thoughts in ordered speech. He must be ready to leave his books awhile and practise the athletics of eloquence with equal industry.