As much as I would love to lay claim to the title of “country lawyer,” I bow to a brand new criminal defense blawger that, in the course of a few posts, owns it.  The Life and Times of a Texas Country Lawyer by Paul Smith is, without a doubt, a hoot.

Paul lives on a ranch, which figures prominently into everything he writes.  His food is cooked by Chuckwagon Sally, who clearly has much to say about what goes on there, and is not one you would want to cross. 

I am sitting around the fire one day eating my grub that Chuckwagon Sally has just conjured up, listening  to a young lawyer complain about a recent trial he had just completed.  He was explaining to Chuckwagon Sally how the cards are stacked against you in a criminal trial and how much harder the defense had to fight vs. the persecution, that’s what Chuckwagon Sally calls “them”.  Chuckwagon Sally hears enough complaining from this youngster and pipes up and says,  “boy, a trial is like a trail ride,,,  after you have gathered up your cattle and you are getting off your horse, you have to try not to step in sh-t.”

Now I don’t have a clue what he/she is trying to get to here, but man, I’m hooked.  I have always had a soft spot for country aphorisms and analogies.  No, they rarely add much to the practice, but they are so much fun to read.  Like this criticism of a “persecutor’s” voir dire:

I recently picked a jury in a criminal case where the District Attorney was one of those “lawyers” with an impressive pedigree.

Now normally, when someone disagrees with me, in jury selection, I just thank them and move on, but he wouldn’t. He keeps trying to get this young mother of 2 to change her mind,,, to see things the way it can only be seen,, that is, his way. This young mother has the courage to express her views and will not back down from her beliefs. You know, where I’m from, you don’t continue to poke a stick into a bee hive, you just move on.

How can you not love this stuff?

The ability to turn that folksy phrase, to analogize to something so down home and rustic that the listener is left believing that they get it even when it makes no sense whatsoever, is something a “country lawyer” can do that a city slicker just can’t.  This is the polar opposite of those who love to use latin or legalisms as if any juror is ever persuaded by a lawyer rubbing their noses in his edumacation. 

Some lawyers can open their mouths and let these words flow out naturally.  These are the real country lawyers, and it works for them, often brilliantly.  For most of us, it would sound horrible and fake, no matter how much we like the words or the feelings they convey, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy and appreciate a little country wisdom.

And sometimes, the message is very, painfully clear, such as the time Paul had to build a new privy for Chuckwagon Sally’s visiting sister from Georgia.

Chuckwagon Sally comes over to the construction site and tells Pepe, the construction crew boss, how to build the cabin the right way, or something like that. You have to understand, Pepe is a very proud man, who takes his job very seriously,, Pepe actually knows how to build things and how not to build things. Something Chuckwagon Sally said must have gotten Pepe’s hockles up, because when I look at the finished privy, I notice the rough side of the board making the seat is up and the smooth side is down. You never know how uncomfortable that makes the user,,, but I suppose Pepe did.

Hence my important jury lesson for today. Never be like Chuckwagon Sally in front of a jury,,, you can have all the education, understand all the psychology of people, have all the common sense and the superior intellect, even have the greatest argument, but if you piss off the jury, they’ll give you rough side up for your client. You’d better hope your lawyer knows about Chuckwagon Sally. Hope everyone has a nice day.

Now that’s a lesson everybody can relate to.  It’s my pleasure, city lawyer that I am, to welcome Paul to the blawgosphere.