Since the thread's been quiet lately, I'll offer some personal thoughts.
I'm a lawyer. I tend to think I have a different view of the role of the lawyer than most of my colleagues, partially because of my grandfather, who was also a lawyer. I never met him; he died before I was born, but I was raised on stories about him. A lot of them had to do with him helping the poor during the Great Depression, taking livestock for payment or even doing straight pro bono work, even though he was not well-off.
The story I remember best is the "Bill Miller". He had just finished defending a man on a felony criminal charge and had lost. As they were waiting for the police to take him from the courtroom, the client, whose name was Bill Miller, handed my grandfather two ten dollar bills, saying "I know this doesn't cover what I owe you, but it's all I have". Granddad took the money, then handed one of the bills back and said "Here, you're going to need some money in prison".
He took the other $10 home and used it to buy a lawnmower. He took some paint and wrote "Bill Miller" on it. He died a few months later of consumption. The following year a man showed up at his door and asked "Is Howard Kirk here?" My father (age about 14), who had answered the door, told him Howard had died. The man said "I'm really sorry to hear that. I just wanted to thank him and tell him I'm out of jail. My name's Bill Miller, and he was my lawyer". Whereupon, my future father took him out back and showed him the lawnmower, with his name on it.
And that big old ex-con cried like a baby. |
