The Jury consequently invests the people … with the direction of society. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America This series is about jury trials. Conflict has been used to resolve disputes for centuries – perhaps as long as time itself. Before trials, opposing sides would meet on a field for a battle or […]
Reed wrote me a letter me on June 7, 1984, after I graduated from college at Washington and Lee. He wanted to walk me through how to think about law school and a career in the law. He wrote that letter more than 130 years after Lincoln’s notes on a law lecture (see, the previous blog […]
Abraham Lincoln’s notes for a law lecture (discussed in the previous post here) are the subject of a ‘Professionalism Movement’ in the legal profession: the idea is that real change toward a better (more ethical) practice is caused not by changes to Model Rules but by freely acting agents – lawyers who voluntarily aspire for […]
Early in his career, lawyer Abraham Lincoln was a voracious reader of everything from poetry to newspapers. In 1837, his attention was fixed on a wave of violence and economic turmoil sweeping the country. He was convinced that America’s Founding principles demanded a renewed focus on respect for laws and a conscious turning away […]
“I am not an accomplished lawyer” Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was a famously small town lawyer. For the bulk of his career, he practiced solo with the help of a junior lawyer named Herndon – who functioned more as a paralegal – doing office organizing and paperwork. Lincoln was a circuit rider, traveling around the […]
