nother attorney. This
is a point on which most lawyers will disagree with me. Nevertheless,
if you are not competent to handle your case, you have done wrong to
open an independent office. If you call in another attorney, every
probability is that you will suggest all the solutions yourself and in
reality win the case; but your old and distinguished associate will
get all the credit. But you need all the credit for work which you
really do.

See well to your evidence before you go into the trial of a cause. Be
very cautious on cross-examination. It is the most powerful but most
delicate and dangerous instrument known to the surgery of the law. Do
not bluster, "bull-doze," or browbeat a witness; there is nothing in
it. You only make the jury sympathize with the person abused. Remember
that an American loves nothing so much as fair play. When on a jury,
he is apt to regard you and the witness as adversaries, you the
stronger and with immense advantage.

Ask few questions on cross-examination. Employ the Socratic method
always. Ask only those questions the logical conclusion of which is
irresistible, and _stop there_. Don't press the _conclusion_ on the
witness. It is your province to show that in your argument.

A timid witness, whom you know to be telling the truth, may often be
confused by cross-examination and made to make a false statement; but
this you have no right, as an honorable attorney, to make him do. A
just judge ought to stop you if you try it. To confuse a witness whom
you know to be telling the truth is not skill; it is a trick, and a
very miserable trick, whose performance requires neither real ability
nor learning.

Think what a tremendous intellectual effort the properly conducted
lawsuit is. You must know your case; you must know your evidence; you
must know each witness as a person and each item of his testimony; you
must know the law applicable to your general proposition, and the
general law upon its various ramifications; you must study the
witnesses of the other side; and, almost more important than any of
these, you must study that wonderful combination of intellect,
prejudice, and passion called the jury.

When the time comes for you to address that jury you must thoroughly
understand each man. This is not that you may influence him, or "play
upon" him, or resort to any of the devices of the baser sort. It is
that you may know how best to get the truth of your case to him. How
to get your