The first Republican president.
Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.
[Hat tip to Patrick A. Malone, who wrote the (excellent!) “Lessons for Trial Lawyers from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address” in the summer issue of Litigation.]
