Few people who stumble on a blawg realize there’s history.  For those of us who have been doing this awhile, there can be quite a bit of history, enough that we don’t quite remember all we’ve written.  Every once in a while, someone will find an old post and feel compelled to put in their 2¢, and we are reminded of words that disappeared from the front page years ago.

In the intervening years, new things come up and old things are sometimes revisited. More often than not, the subjects of posts from back then remain issues, and ought to be evergreen.  Unfortunately, that’s not the nature of blawgs, and people who need to read old posts never do, and people who write blawgs don’t repeat themselves for the benefit of newcomers. 

This was all brought to mind when a young lawyer left a comment at a post by Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett at Defending People from December 1, 2007, nearly six years ago.  The post was entitled How to become a federal criminal defense lawyer.

Six years is forever on the interwebz, long before Joseph Rakofsky was retained to represent Dontrell Deaner. He was still a student at Touro Law School at the time. Had he read this post, perhaps he wouldn’t have taken on the case and set in motion the course of events that destroyed his career. Perhaps not.

The post offers some truisms about the practice of law.

So the first and most impor­tant thing for the aspir­ing fed­eral crim­i­nal lawyer to know is this: you don’t know squat. Accept that with calm humil­ity and good cheer. You may have edited the law review … and cap­tained the mock trial team … at Yale. You are not pre­pared in the slight­est to defend peo­ple accused of crimes any­where, let alone fed­eral court. Even if you spent years as a state pros­e­cu­tor, even if you spent years as a defense lawyer in state court, even if you served as a fed­eral pros­e­cu­tor, you are now offi­cially a fed­eral crim­i­nal defense new­bie, and a new­bie you will remain until you have tried sev­eral fed­eral crim­i­nal cases to juries as a defense lawyer. Plead­ing peo­ple guilty does not count. Only after you’ve tried some cases as defense coun­sel in fed­eral court will you know squat.

Strong words. They weren’t quite as controversial to the new lawyer then as they are today, as the dearth of jobs for new lawyers hadn’t yet sunk in, but still they were harsh to their ears.  Bright and shiny faces, ready to take the world by storm, being told they knew squat.

The lawyer who stumbled upon this post the other day, now years later and in the age when many new lawyers hang up their own shingles because they have no other choice, took this old post of Bennett’s and overlaid today’s sensibilities.

As a young attor­ney, with life expe­ri­ence, your com­men­tary is some what offen­sive. Accord­ing to your expert fig­ures, nearly 80 per­cent of cases set­tle. In that regard, we as lawyers, minimize expo­sure, tak­ing into account the facts of the case. It does not take years of expe­ri­ence to size up a case. With regard to defend­ing a crim­i­nal client. I sub­mit that a young hun­gry attorney, that excelled in mock trials, is absolutely ready to try a case. In fact, given the facts of your arti­cle, much more so than you were in your first bank rob­bery case.

I am a hum­ble lawyer and know that there is more to learn each and every day I prac­tice. I watch and lis­ten to sea­soned attor­neys and hope that I will be able to speak as elo­quently as them and grasp the law as they do. How­ever, if you pre­pare as a young lawyer, you can make up for lack of expe­ri­ence. [Broken into two paragraphs for readability.]

This self-proclaimed humble young lawyer, “that excelled in mock trials,” contends that he’s more than ready to do whatever he decides he’s ready to do. “It does not take years of expe­ri­ence to size up a case.” He can, he says, make up for his lack of experience by preparing. 

Perhaps he believes that experienced lawyers don’t prepare, plus have experience?  Perhaps this is just the rationalization of a child with nothing remotely resembling thought. That song, I believe I can fly, plays in my head.  Believe all you want, but don’t jump off the roof. You cant fly.

Worse than the self-serving delusion of inherent competence, however, was his schooling Bennett:

And at the end of the day, when you pull back the cur­tain on crim­i­nal law, the fact is the great wiz­ard of oz is just a man. You are not as impor­tant as you might think and you your­self should be more humble and will­ing to be a men­tor from a place of humil­ity rather than arrogance.

Forget the irony of the padawan telling the master how to teach, and note instead the irony of this young lawyer’s chastising Bennett for his lack of humility. Teach me as I demand to be taught, the grasshopper admonishes, as if he does a favor by allowing the mentor to bask in his youthful importance.

Bennett, a patient fellow, responds that in a decade or two, the young lawyer will read his words and recognize their foolishness. I was not so kind. I am not as patient as Bennett. But the young lawyer was compelled to finish his lesson:

This whole take your med­i­cine and leave the prac­tic­ing of law to sea­soned lawyer is somewhat amus­ing. I have the same three let­ters after my name as you. I fully under­stand my place as far as being some­what new to the pro­fes­sion, but believe in teach­ing and men­tor­ing from a place of encour­age­ment and empow­er­ment, not from a place of fear and doubt.

If I was hum­ble, I would not respond to the sea­soned defense attor­ney, telling me that he does not want to hold my hand, as I try and forge ahead just as he did years ago? I can say that I am hum­ble and will­ing to learn, just smart enough to know that In years to come I will teach from a dif­fer­ent place than your arti­cle sug­gests. That in and of itself would be considered by some to be wis­dom. [Again broken into two paragraphs for readability.]

So this is the new notion of wisdom? At least this young lawyer’s foolishness brought this old post of Bennett’s back onto the radar, and for that his comment was worthwhile. 

Maybe it’s time to recycle things written in the past that remain as appropriate today as they were when first posted. It’s a shame that good advice is lost to time on the interwebz. Clearly, the need for it remains as much today as it did then. Maybe moreso.