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50 A.B.A. J. 537 (1964)
But the Greatest of These

handle is hein.journals/abaj50 and id is 537 raw text is: But the Greatest of These The work of judges is enshrined in the reports and the labor of the law teacher is made easier by the use of hindsight. But the lawyer, especially the trial lawyer, is not given the recognition he deserves, Mr. Planck declares. It is high time, the author proposes, that the lawyer be assigned his proper place as the greatest of the three. by Joseph W. Planck * of the Michigan Bar (Lansing) And now abideti law teacher, law- yer and judge and the greatest of these is the lawyer. -JUDGE JOSEPI C. HUTCHESON, JR. THIS SIMPLE TRUTH is not given the recognition it deserves. Of course, for lawyer read trial lawyer. It is high time that the advocate is assigned his proper place at the head of the en- tire legal profession instead of trailing in public recognition and esteem be- hind the law professor and the judge. One reason the lawyer is not given his due place is the fact that judges write decisions embalmed in printed volumes which have a captive audience, the Bar. This alone confers a form of immortality. On the other hand, a law- yer's life is largely writ in water. Usu- ally the only tangible remains of his work are some dusty files of ancient and forgotten causes. Thus it comes to pass that the best legal minds are little known or remembered. The lawyer has to cope as best he can with an enormous mass of judicial decisions constantly swelling in volume at a rate only comparable to that of the expanding universe itself. The law is a huge rag bag in which the lawyer must search for a particular color and piece to match his case. Usually he can find something. Then his task is to argue that it should be made the rule of decision in his case. Another complication for the lawyer is that judicial decisions are not always, one regrets to say, models of logical judicial thinking and crystal-clear pre- sentment. The lawyer all too often is at a loss to understand what the judge was trying to say. Perhaps the judge had the same trouble. It is said that Immanuel Kant had one great advan- tage over later thinkers: he didn't have to read and ponder Kant. There is no sound reason for this puzzlement. The issues are defined simply and clearly by counsel for the plaintiff and the defendant. The ap- plicable principles of law are set forth by them in briefs or oral argument with citations to the legal precedents. From where the lawyer sits all the judge has to do is make a choice and then write an essay, the shorter the better, based on the research and labor of the winning advocate. Sometimes, as though to demonstrate alertness and originality, the opinion of the court will advert to some decision, perhaps irrele- vant, not cited by counsel. Frequently the decision of an appel- late court is unanimous. There is no contrary voice. This leaves the loser and also his client, unfortunately, with the feeling that they had no business being in court in the first place, the law being so plainly against them. But when there is a split decision, the situ- ation is much better. Sometimes even, the feelings of the distinguished jurists become aroused; they let their hair down and go at each other with ham- mer and tongs. One side or the other may be convinced that constitutional government is being destroyed and the republic cannot stand. Or it may be angrily pointed out that the legislature or the Congress (as the case may be) has a place in the scheme of govern- ment and that there is and ought to be applied a quality known as judicial restraint. Mr. Dooley (Finley Peter Dunne) observed this phenomenon years ago when he said: An appeal, Hinnissy, is where ye ask wan coort to show its contempt f'r another coort. .... I have gr-reat respect f'r th' joodicyary, as fine a lot 'iv cross an' indignant men as ye'll find annywhere. I have th' same respect f'r thim as they have f'r each other. How Counsel Read an Opinion When the postman delivers the deci- sion of the court, most lawyers turn to the last page. If it is favorable, the opinion is read through with apprecia- tion of the perspicacity and legal acu- men therein employed. If the case is lost, the document is tossed aside and only picked up at a later time so that the lawyer can tell his client where the June, 1964 , Vol. 50 537

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