Honest Abe

Being a lawyer, I tend to think about Abraham Lincoln from time to time. Lincoln is the American patron saint of lawyers (the actual patron saint of lawyers, per the Catholic Church, is Thomas More, another entry for another time).

Lincoln had this crazy idea that it was better to talk a litigant out of litigation rather than to take thousands of dollars of his money for a useless claim. Lincoln once had a farmer come to his office wanting to file a lawsuit against his neighbor on a boundry dispute. Lincoln excused himself, found the neighbor, brought him back to the office and had the two of them sit and talk it out instead. The lawsuit was never filed.

Lincoln was a smart lawyer. He is famous for his cross examination in which he got an eye witness to a murder to say he saw Lincoln's client commit the stabbing by the light of the moon. Lincoln then pulled out an almanac which stated that the moon was not out at that time that particular night. The client was acquitted.

Lincoln was a railroad lawyer, This means that he did corporate buisness at a time in the country's history when "corporation" was not a dirty word. (I should note, however, that Lincoln was a Republican, and Republicans have always, always been pro-business, for better or worse). Despite working for a corporate master, there is no record of Lincoln ever working to get a widow evicted or to seize the assets of a poor man.

As I go through my day, I sometimes think to myself that to be worthy of the name "lawyer," I need to emulate Honest Abe. By the way, "Honest" is not a nickname usually given to a lawyer, except in an ironic fashion, and there's every indication that people called Lincoln "honest" as a true description of his practice. I try to be honest with my clients. I try to be honest with the opposition and the courts. I say "try" not because I ever purposely deceive anyone, but because sometimes I am "honestly" mistaken about facts, due to the vagaries of humanity.

I, also, try to counsel people not to file lawsuits if talking will get the job done. I've actually talked myself out of a number of clients due to this, but I don't worry about the loss of income to the Bruce family. I'd rather not clog the courts and have angry clients who are getting overbilled for services. I'd rather be a service provider than a money grubber.

One more thing they said about Abe: That he had no enemies in the legal profession.

Oh well. I guess I can't completely emulate Lincoln. But sometimes I wonder what he would have done if he'd had to deal with some of the crazed lawyers I've had to deal with.

On second thought, he probably would have found a way to beat them without getting angry with them. He would have told a joke, cited a law, gone on his way.

Maybe I can try a little harder in the coming year to work on my Lincoln impression. It will only help my practice. And my soul.