Under our system, so complex has it become, the man who wants to do right doesn’t know how. Except in the simplest transactions, a lawyer must show him how. If, on the contrary, a bad man wants to do wrong, but wants to escape punishment, he needs, and can generally get, a lawyer to show him the way.
The innocent man, accused of crime, needs a lawyer; is not safe without one, and may be convicted, even then, if he happens to employ a sorry one, who can be outwitted by the prosecution.
The guilty man, accused of crime, needs a lawyer; is not safe without one; and if he employs a good one, while the prosecution is managed by a sorry one, the jury may be forced to turn him loose, although they feel that he is “as guilty as a dog.”
Thus, looked at from the standpoint of mere ambition, sordid selfishness, the “study of law” powerfully attracts young men who want to get on in the world.
But there is another point of view—thank God!
It is not every student of Blackstone or Coke who licks his chops, by anticipation, over the sweets of mental prostitution.
It is not every student of the law who means to become the jackal to the lion, the doer of dirty work for hire, the seller of divinely fashioned genius to the highest bidder—with the morals of a harlot, without that excuse of dire necessity which the harlot can often give.
In most cases the boy who comes to the study of the law is actuated by nobler motives, a higher purpose. A generous ambition to gain knowledge, to fit himself for a leader’s place among men, to arm himself with the weapons which enable him to fight the battles of the weak and to defend the right against the wrong, find place in his mind and heart, just as they do in the beautiful language of the oath which he must take.
Almost in the very words—and quite in the identical spirit—that ancient Chivalry solemnly swore the Knight-Errant to his duty, pledging him to champion the cause of the weak and the oppressed, the oath of office consecrates the young lawyer to his work by the same holy vows. For it must be remembered that no profession has a more glorious tradition and heritage than that of the law.
The Crusaders who have in modern times gone forth to redeem the Holy Sepulchre of Truth from the Infidel have been led, by whom?