Hugh Duvall
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 138
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The practice of law can be a gut-wrenching, high speed rollercoaster ride. A ride departing on the hour, every hour, day in and day out. Where its participants lock themselves in and brace for take-off. It can also be a slow float down a lazy river, traveling no faster than the current. Lawyers spend their lives taking these journeys, but they do not take them alone. The sole purpose of each is to help a client get from one place to another. The Lawyer's Song is a celebration of this profession, an exploration of the lawyer as guide. Hugh Duvall, a seasoned courtroom veteran, explores the various aspects of this work, from the passion to the pain, from the peaks to the post-journey reflections. Fellow lawyers pondering why they entered the profession and young folks considering taking the plunge will find understanding within these pages. The Lawyer's Song: Explores the complexity of legal practice, breaking it down into twenty separate topics. Discusses each topic in an entertaining, dual format - first presenting a vignette following a frontier guide in 1842 Oregon Territory and then discussing the same topic as it relates to the present day practice of law. Reinvigorates the battle-fatigued lawyer. Explains the challenges lawyers, especially trial lawyers, face on a day-to-day basis: Adhering to their oaths, negotiating fees, accepting the weight of responsibility, enduring the pain of defeat and savoring the intense satisfaction of assisting the client in achieving his or her goals. The worn and weathered attorney will emerge from reading The Lawyer's Song with renewed understanding, strength and purpose - ready to plunge head-first back into raging legal waters. The Lawyer's Song splits open the profession and lays it bare. The young student considering life as an attorney will find his or her view of this work changed, in a number of ways less romanticized and in others, more so. The Lawyer's Song is a song to "sooth the soul, to lift the spirit and celebrate our noble profession. If you are such a soul, it is a song for you. If you are not, if you are of the uninitiated, then hear our song." - from the Preface"