By Mark Scott
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-661900.mp3
Buffalo, NY – I recently had the honor of addressing the first year law students from the University of Buffalo, who now come down to the courts to get a sense of the Buffalo legal scene during their orientation. The school had suggested that I might want to relate some humorous anecdotes from the beginning of my law school career, but I thought it unlikely that my adventures at UB from so very long ago would hold much interest for today's law student. But then I thought, hey, no one worried about whether they were interesting when I was a law student, so I proceeded to regale the assembled group in exhausting detail with my every thought, feeling and action during my entire three years in what was, then, "the little law school in the big swamp." Actually, I would have loved to have done just that, because I'm the president of the bar association and can do whatever I want and you can't stop me, but, luckily for them it was so long ago I remember very little.
So what should I tell these aspiring lawyers? Should I have told them how hard it can be to make a living? That the privilege of representing people in some of the most significant matters of their lives can leave you sleepless and sad and exhausted? That the strain puts some of our colleagues in need of the services of the Bar Foundation? Somehow, that message didn't seem to have quite the right tone. It looked like I was going to have to try to figure out what, after all, is the crux of the practice of law?
As I looked out over the sea of black suits in the Ceremonial Courtroom, I told them that what lawyers do inside or outside of a courtroom is very important. It is important to our clients, it is important to ourselves, and it is important to this country.
While all cases do not make the national news, they are all of national importance because every time someone asks the state to intervene in their life by use of the courts, they do so only because the rule of law prevails in this country. While many of them will not practice law in a courtroom, whether they are in their offices all day drawing contracts or forming business entities or buying and selling property, the only reason anyone will pay them to do that is because this country exists under the rule of law. If someone doesn't keep their word, there is a remedy that does not involve weapons at high noon. I told them that there is much to learn in law school, but even if they learn everything they will not be a successful lawyer without respect for, faith in and an abiding loyalty to the rule of law. Upholding the rule of law is the primary activity of a lawyer.
It's codified, to a certain extent, in the Ethics Codes, but it needs to be in a lawyer's bones. No one is more patriotic than a lawyer defending an unpopular cause. So, that's what I told them. What they'll make of that, I've no idea, but it was good for me to be reminded.
Listener-Commentator Cheryl Fisher is a lawyer in private practice with the firm McGavern, McGavern and Grimm.
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