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MEMBERS OF THE CALHOUN AND KALAMAZOO
COUNTY BARS BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
As a rule it is always the easiest to do the best thing. Giddings knew how Ho try a lawsuit, because he went at it in the most natural and easy way. The habitues of the old court room of thirty five years ago say that he tried a case in the coolest, fairest and pleasantest manner of any lawyer they ever knew. He never lost anything by excitement or anger during the conflict of , the trial. He would get along with the most difficult matter, the most obdurate witness, the most disagreeable and carping opponent, in the easiest manner possible. Trying a lawsuit, after all, is an affair in which the equable temper and manner of the lawyer have so much to do that they may be said often to turn the suit in his favor. Giddings carried his accustomed suaviter in modo into the court room, and made it as effectual in the conduct of business there as he did in social life. Knowing that mankind everywhere recognize that "fair play is a jewel, " he made a lawsuit no exception to its use. While he respected and got along well with an honest pettifogger, yet he repudiated the pettifogging so much in vogue among a certain class of lawyers. Said he to one of the latter class, in a suit he was trying with
him: "Now, B------, don't let us pettifog this case, but let us reason it
through, like lawyers. " At another time he said: "E------ is a pettifogger,
but he always argues his case like a lawyer; while on the other hand, M------
is a lawyer, but he always pettifogs his case, whether in a justice or in a circuit court, and he always makes a long plea in every trivial suit, and bursts into rhetoric over every trivial incident. "
Michigan Bar
Page 1
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