Lincoln the Lawyer

by Brian R. Dirck

This fascinating history explores Abraham Lincoln's legal career, investigating the origins of his desire to practice law, his legal education, his partnerships with John Stuart, Stephen Logan, and William Herndon, and the maturation of his far-flung practice in the 1840s and 1850s. Brian Dirck also examines Lincoln's clientele, how he charged his clients, and how he addressed judge and jury, as well as his views on legal ethics and the supposition that he never defended a client he knew to be guilty.

Genres: Biography, Law, American History, Nonfiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[R. Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lincoln the Lawyer (not to be confused with The Lincoln Lawyer - and trust me, people will make this mistake) is a book about an oft-overlooked part of Abraham Lincoln's life: his time as an attorney. You quickly discover exactly why it's usually not talking about. It's incredibly boring. As someone with an interest in presidents, law, and historical biographies, I found this book very difficult to read. I had to force myself to finish it.

Lincoln was, by all accounts, a competent general practice, small-time attorney. It was a living, and that's all he ever treated it as. He enjoyed the masculine qualities of the job, especially when he traveled the circuit. He was apparently pretty good at his job. Not great, but not bad. The vast majority of his cases dealt with debt.

The author, Brian Dirck, did an excellent job with the materials he had. But, unfortunately, the information here just does not make for an interesting read. There is a murder case, the Almanac Trial, that makes for a kinda cool story. There's a few other little interesting bits of trivia buried deep inside the novel, but they're few and far between, and difficult to get to. Dirck did his research, and it shows. The drawback is that you will spend dozens of pages wading through the information he unearthed about various small cases, each with no more than a paragraph or two. Entire chapters are built on this, and it gets real old, real fast. The author has some trouble organizing things, in my opinion; one chapter is dedicated both to cases involving women, and cases involving death. It's called "Death and the Maidens."

You can get the full message and feel of the book by reading the first and last chapters ("Great God Almighty" and "Grease"). If you want a little more in-depth understanding of the material, read the third chapter, "Promissory Notes," and MAYBE chapter 2, called "The Brethren." Do yourself a favor, though, and don't read any more.

[Andrea Conarro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks for this one, MM!  I finished this one up
last week. It was much better than I first suspected it might be (note the dearth of history books in my list...woefully deficient in that area, I am!).

I enjoyed reading of Lincoln as a man among men,
riding horseback through the rain as he traveled to the next court in his little circuit in Illinois...bunking with his fellow lawyers...representing whatever business he could get... I enjoyed the descriptions of his caseload, the types of cases he tried. The author made a bit too much of certain details,attempting to suggest that Lincoln the Whig was more inclined to represent the creditor than the debtor because of his views on the economy. The fact that Lincoln represented more creditors suggested to me--as it suggests today--that the little man debtor probably didn't have the money to hire an attorney, and probably sat at home just wishing the case (and debt) would go away. I felt the author may have overlooked some simpler answers to why Lincoln took the cases
he did...

I was interested to read of Lincoln's alleged "discomfort" with females.The author declined to speculate on the reasons for this general discomfort, and I am not sure what to
think on that topic.

Finally, in the wrapping up portion of the book, I note the author's description of "Lawyer as Lubricant." The function of the lawyer is to oil up the cogs of society's
machinery, keep business and the world running smoothly. I am not so sure I agree with that characterization in every circumstance or for every type of lawyer, but it was good to read something other than the disparaging, gumming-up-the-works description of lawyers...

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The study of Lincoln as a lawyer was revolutionized in 2000 when the Lincoln Legal Papers Project released their results in three CDs. It was the work of forty staff members over 14 years. They unearthed every surviving record of Lincoln's career as a lawyer. They searched the records of eighty-eight courthouses in Illinois. They searched sixty-one manuscript collections and contacted 14,000 libraires. The results were organized and indexed. For the first time, it was possible to have a documented basis for considering Lincoln's legal career.

This is the first book to use the Project as a basis for considering Lincoln's legal career. Dirck provides empirical support for some basic issues. He shows, for example, that Lincoln's practice was heavily involved in collecting and defending against the collection of debt.

Promissory notes where commonly used in business and were frequently defaulted on. Dirck explains the differences between trespass on the case upon promises, scire facies proceedings, attachments and writs of assumpsit as debt collections proceedings used by Lincoln. Lincoln also knew all of the defenses to use for defending debtors.

Dirck shows that debts were an important part of Lincoln's business throughout his career. As he got more experienced and better known, the size of the debts he was involved with got larger. Throughout his career it appears that debt collections and defense were an important part of his income. (These days we would say it covered his nut.)

Dirck argues that in general, Lincoln was part of a deal making, pro-development environment. He argues that Lincoln helped "grease' the wheels of commerce. He uses the "grease" metaphor to show how Lincoln's legal experience effected his legal career and his presidency. Whenever possible Lincoln would resolve cases with a settlement. He had no use for lawyers who fomented or encouraged lawsuits.

I disagree with Dirck's claim that "Lincoln, the great American, was in reality a pretty average lawyer." He was lavishly praised by every lawyer who practiced in the Illinois courts with him. Dirck says these testimonials were all made after his Presidency and assassination and were eulogies to a hero, not dispassionate evaluations.

Lincoln was frequently brought into difficult cases by other lawyers. He was the most active lawyer in the Illinois Supreme Court. He was not much of an office lawyer. He was not a quick study, by his own confession. But all of his contemporizes agreed that he was unmatched in talking to a jury or to an appellate court. By all accounts, Lincoln was a very good trial lawyer. There is an indicator which is still true today. People come to watch great lawyers try cases. Time after time we hear that a courtroom was filled with spectators who wanted to watch Lincoln try a case. That doesn't happen to an average lawyer.

Dirck struggles with the Matson case where Lincoln represented a slave owner trying to take a slave back to Kentucky. He listens to the critics and defenders of Lincoln on the case and finally concludes that "the entire conversation about Lincoln, his practice and race is beside the point. Race was a negligible presence in his practice". He points out that, as far as we can tell, he represented a total of 24 African Americans out of a total of 4000 cases he handled.

Lawyers take cases for all kinds of reasons. It has always been the case that a lawyer regrets taking the cases he had doubts about, more that he regrets turning down the cases he had doubts about. At this point it does not seem possible to understand why Lincoln represented a slave owner trying to take a woman back into slavery, but it was inarguably at odds with his publicly held opinions on slavery.

Dirck has an interesting take on the effect that Lincoln's legal experience had on his governance as President. It is often argued that Lincoln's representation of all classes of people gave him a sympathetic and wise insight into the challenges he faced as a President. Dirck argues that being lawyer trained Lincoln to focus on solving problems rather than getting bogged down into personal details. "As a lawyer, Lincoln learned the utility, indeed the necessity, of separating the public from the private, the knowable from the unknowable, that which is necessary from that which is superfluous."

This is a well written and deeply considered evaluation of Lincoln as a lawyer.

[Anthony Strefford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read. Helps me in my study of the history of the United States of America, which I have been studying through Hillsdale College. That is all I have say about this particular president. I am now reading a book on George Washington.

I found this book on Amazon for very little cost and thought it would be an interesting read. It turned out to be just that.

[Drew Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick, and mostly enjoyable little read about Lincoln's law practice. I didn't feel like I walked away really learning much other than Lincoln was a country lawyer, and those that knew him then inflated his pre-Presidential career to make themselves feel important.

[Josh Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lincoln the Lawyer is a book written by Brian Dirck. This book is a very informational book. The book is ordered chronologically, but the author gets off topic very easily. I believe that Brian wrote this book because of his love for Lincoln. The book is written just as any other bibliography would be, from the perspective of a third person party, telling about Lincoln’s life. The book shows that Brian spent time doing his research on Lincoln.

I believe that this book has no particular theme. The book is just a bibliography, which tends to have no theme to it. If I had to choose a theme it would be that history does not have a great deal of information on Lincoln as a lawyer from his friends. One of his closest friends, William Henry Herndon, can take us a little deeper into his thoughts. For a president it is very rare to find so little on him and his life. Lincoln did not open himself up to a lot of people, so the fact that the author portrayed this very well is enlightening.

This book is a bibliography. We follow Lincoln around as a third person party, observing his life from the outside. The book is compiled of several different works, all about the life of Lincoln. Brian uses so many different references that he leaves 42 pages at the end just to give the other writers their credit. This book is very unique as it tries to not only look at the visual portion of Lincoln’s life, but also the mental aspect of his life.

I personally did not like this book very much. The author did an excellent job in the book itself, but the overall topic and how he portrayed it was very boring. The author put a lot of work into researching all of the details that he could.

[Ari · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book describes itself as not belonging to legal history or American history, but rather, as a work of "Lincoln studies". In fact, it's something of a professional biography -- a chronological look, mostly, at Lincoln's law practice in Illinois.

Unfortunately, the book has about 40 pages' worth of real content, padded out to several times that length. The first few chapters are pretty good, but the book trails off into the author's imaginary reconstruction of what Lincoln might have thought, rather than any actual facts about what he said or did.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one I may like as much as I do because I'm a lawyer, too [if one of you nonlawyers gives it a try, I'd be interested whether it held your interest]. Fascinating perspective on Lincoln, though -- looks at many of the cases he was involved in. Turns out that most of his work involved debtor-creditor issues. Kept documents in his hat! Interestingly,his writing as a lawyer apparently gave no hint of the eloquence to come.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of the better books on Lincoln. Contrary to others who have reviewed this book, I do think Lincoln's legal career could be interesting fodder for a book. But, consistent with others, this book has many flaws that make it probably not worth reading unless you are an avid Lincoln fan.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well worth the read for the final 2 chapters; explores a part a Lincoln often minimized to a footnote.