Talk:Country lawyer

Delete or completely rewrite this article

I'm a great fan both of country lawyers and of the idea of "reading the law," but I respectfully submit that the two concepts are not directly related. This article errs by equating a country lawyer as one who has little or no formal legal education. Moreover, no sources are cited for this assertion.

I can see that someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to institutionalize this article (by, among other things, linking to it from numerous other articles), so I presume there may be some who may disagree with me. Therefore let me elaborate on what otherwise seems to me to be obvious:

1. Sources: Only two sources are cited (Francis Lyman Windolph's Country Lawyer and Robert H. Jackson's |The County-Seat Lawyer). They both appear to be affectionate and insightful tributes to country lawyers, but I can find nowhere that either defines or equates a country lawyer as one who did not attend law school. (Jackson does list "reading the law" commentaries of Blackstone and Kent as one of many attributes of what he characterizes as a vanishing breed.)
2. History, diction, and logic: Reading the law does a good job of explaining three stages in the certification of attorneys in the United States: At first there were no law schools so one had no choice but to "read the law" and then apply for admission to a court's bar. As law schools sprang up, one had the option of attending them or "reading the law". Today, most but not all states require law school graduation before bar admission. By simple English diction we can define a country lawyer as a lawyer who practices in the country, i.e. in a rural area, e.g. in a small (or country) town. Logic then tells us that at first, when all lawyers had to read the law, they did not all practice in small towns. Likewise today, when most lawyers graduate from law school, they do not all then flock to big cities, but some prefer to work in small towns and thus become country lawyers.

I know from personal experience that there are many fine (and some not so fine) country lawyers today. It's a noble profession that has nothing to do with whether one has "read the law" or attended law school. Likewise I have a great deal of respect for someone who, if permitted, has the discipline to "read the law" on his/her own to become a lawyer and see no reason why such a lawyer should necessarily be characterized as "country".

Because the main point to the existing article is to make this assertion that country lawyers are those without little or no formal law school education, I believe it is appropriate to delete it. One could make the argument that it should be rewritten to deal with the actual subject of its two sources. However, I believe the subject lacks notability. If we have an article on country lawyers, we need one on country preachers, country teachers, country doctors, etc.

What do you think? Frappyjohn (talk) 03:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. Country lawyer probably isn't notably different from regular lawyers, but but there's definitely no automatic connection to reading law, which already has its own article. Sam Glover (talk) 21:33, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Andrew Jackson

It's silly that we even have this debate... but the person is insisting we include a blurb that rather comedically attempts to summarize Jackson, one of the most controversial and complicated people in American History, in a fraction of a sentence. It makes this article looks silly yet he's reverting back to it within 10 minutes of my edits. He claims that the article "requires explaining actions related to civil liberties" in this list, but his hidden note and the article itself mention nothing about the country lawyer being notable for what he does later in life, while not practicing law, related to civil liberties. What Jackson did as president is not very much related to his legal work earlier in life, so it doesn't belong there. Does anyone but the person reverting me instantly feel this way? --Chiliad22 (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for dropping by: I think that on a wiki, it's never silly to discuss. Since the issue of Andrew Jackson is liable to come again (as well as the one about how this list is intended to work), it's worth documenting it for the record beyond the small hidden comment:

• For the matter at hand, please see how there are 2 definitions and meanings of "country lawyer", the second being, quote: "By extension, and popularized by such figures as Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow, and Robert H. Jackson, the country lawyer's image has become that of advocate and protector of the common man": this second meaning is not necessarily related to the practice of law and often derives from a presidential legacy. Indeed, the people on the current list are usually called "country lawyers" more in relation to that second meaning than the first. (And actually, Clarence Darrow went to law school and had a full law degree, never being a country lawyer in the first meaning, and thus called "a sophisticated country lawyer", cf. his article.) In the list, I tried to briefly document how each was related to one or two of those meanings, so that each entry is self-explained and self-justified for inclusion. For instance, "Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), prairie lawyer, 16th U.S. President (1861–1865), ended slavery (1862–1865)" documents that he was one in both meanings, first as the proverbial "prairie lawyer", then as the one who ended slavery – actually, the nigh-superfluous point here is "16th U.S. President" which is added only so as to link the two points and explain how a mere prairie lawyer ends up abolishing slavery, without too large a gap between the two meanings.
• For Jackson proper, he's obviously a problem item that needs careful NPOV, since many admire him and many revile him, and it's not up to us here to judge but to document: fact is, those who admire him tag him as a "country lawyer" in the second meaning of the term (regardless of his having also been one in the first meaning: he's admired for his presidential action, not for his few years of frontier lawyering – same as for Lincoln or Robert H. Jackson). That is, Jackson is associated to the "country lawyer" mythos more for being considered "protector of democracy and liberty" as a president, than for whatever cases he was involved in on the frontier. So, excluding Jackson from the list would be seen as POV. Including him without documenting the positive presidential actions some call him a country lawyer for, would make the list look arbitrary, incomplete or unexplained. (We can't rely on "common knowledge", the list should be useful for readers outside the U.S.) But then, adding only his positive credit about "democracy and liberty" without also noting the negatives others revile him for (basically, that he protected only the liberty of white men) would also look incomplete and POV. Hence the NPOV balancing act with the dual legacy (lifted from his own article). That's why I disagree that "What Jackson did as president is not very much related" – people praising him as a "country lawyer" are thinking of the second meaning, not of the first or what he did on the frontier. As a first step, does that make now at least more clear the reasoning that went behind this list and Jackson's entry within? And in this light, which alternative entry would you propose for him?
• As for your call to other people's opinion, I have to disclose that it's probably just you and me for now: I rewrote and expanded it last month from this stub, including the list and its criteria. So, if we can't eventually find some agreement or compromise, we'll have to ask for neutral and uninvolved parties rather than wait for them (such as dropping a note at Wikipedia:WikiProject Law). But even if it comes to that, we'd still better clarify and sort out our positions first, so as to be able to open a 2nd section summarizing each side's arguments before inviting other people to have a look. — The Little Blue Frog (ribbit) 10:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh, if you're writing a novel because you can't stand someone removing a goofy half-sentence of article text... then I'm going to have to stick with my original claim that it's silly to discuss. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh. --Chiliad22 (talk) 15:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

That's how it's done on a WP:CIVIL collaborative project; and to paraphrase the immortal words of Dr. Frank N. Furter, "I didn't make it for you!" — The Little Blue Frog (ribbit) 14:51, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you just revert people, bludgeon them with long posts and hope they go away. Civil, but... there are other words for it too. --Chiliad22 (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Matlock

I love the show Matlock, but Andy Griffith's character Ben Matlock may be a poor example of the archetype. He graduated from Harvard Law School before he began practicing law, which seems to be the antithesis of the "country lawyer".

Coupdeforce (talk) 18:16, 15 September 2017 (UTC)