Wondering if law school and the practice of law is for you?
Want to learn more about the time commitment needed to practice law?
Today I have collaborated with Michael Hackard, a successful attorney who has practiced law
for over 40 years.
Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.
Today I am sharing a video created by Michael Hackard, who is going to talk about the dedication
needed to practice law—I will place his bio and description below,
along with a link to his YouTube channel.
After his message, today’s bonus law fact is about the extreme British lawyer,
who studied law 16 hours a day and gave up all entertainment.
Hi, I'm Mike Hackard.
Our legal careers have series of firsts.
First job, first meeting with a client, first day in court, and of course, the first of the first:
our first day in law school.
Before I go on, don't forget to the like button if you enjoy this episode, and click the subscribe button
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Lawyers remember their first day at law school.
We remember emotional things.
And whether conscious or subliminal, that first day was emotional.
So, I'll go back into my own memory. It's a day of firsts.
It's our first day of class.
We're sitting in our law school's largest auditorium.
We two hundred first-year law students await the first words from our first law professors.
The opening act to our chosen profession.
I look around, and recognize only one person, the Dean of the law school.
His reputation proceeds him.
Presiding judge of our local superior court while only in his mid-thirties.
Bar teacher to some of California's most famous luminaries.
Best friend to America's most famous attorney actor.
Legal advisor to our state's rich and powerful.
Mentor to a future United States Supreme Court Justice.
And now, on that first day, a legal sage.
Sharing the foundation of his legal career with a few hundred first year law students.
The law is a jealous mistress.
The Dean said it. He didn't tell us to remember it, but I did.
I was twenty-three years old and newly married.
I couldn't say much about a jealous mistress then, and after forty-eight years of marriage I still can't.
Still, I got the point, and later learned the source of the quotation, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story.
Justice Story's quote, made long before any of us sitting there were born, was a little longer than the Dean's.
"The law is a jealous mistress, and requires long and constant courtship.
It is not to be won by trifling favors but by lavish homage."
The mistress described by judge Story is pretty demanding.
The Dean's wisdom, or warning, however you take it, proved true early in my law school career.
And it's still holds true many decades later.
The decision to have a long and constant courtship is a choice.
It's a choice not made by all law students, lawyers, or even judges.
And it might simply be a question of lessening life's tensions between professional and personal life.
Or, waning exuberance for an early career choice.
It might even be a frustration, that conquering a particular subject matter, can allude us.
The, what we know, know what we don't know, and don't know what we don't know
present challenges to exercising good counsel to those whom we serve.
Particularly the don't know what we don't know, part of the trilogy.
That's the part that can bite us.
This is like our best laid 2020 plans that evaporate in a world pandemic.
We didn't expect to be working from home, seeing our court houses closed.
Seeing cases timed for resolution kicked into an unknown future.
When crises present themselves, our personal aspirations to be better, to do better, are critical.
The quest for knowledge and for good judgment, however interrupted,
is a continuing and meaningful journey.
Early, even late pronouncements, of mission accomplished often boomerang.
Proverb's wisdom, some three thousand years old:
That pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Still rings true.
Law's demand for lavish homage doesn't disappear with age.
So I pass on to you that which was passed on to me.
Excellence in law and lawyering is a long and constant courtship.
A courtship that lasts throughout our professional lives.
Our calling, our career can be gratifying and a source for much good.
If it is merely a job, it's rewards will be mere.
Now, for today’s bonus law fact.
Michael discussed Justice Joseph Story’s jealous mistress analogy.
Let me share the first half of that quote, which deals with a more extreme dedication
to the law than the jealous mistress:
“I will not say with Lord Hale, that “the law will admit of no rival,
and nothing to go even with it….”
In other words, complete and total dedication.
The person behind this quote was Lord Matthew Hale, a noted 17th century English jurist,
who was completely committed to the law.
After college, he was required to study law for two years, which he did by reading law
for 16 hours a day.
During that time he stopped going to any form of entertainment as he found it clouded his
judgment.
When he wanted entertainment, he spent time reading the histories of England in Latin.
Thankfully, the practice of law is not that extreme today, so enjoy some entertainment
from time to time.
New videos every other Wednesday.
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