The Joy of Being a Lawyer

• Author: Palmer Gene Vance II
• Position: The author is chair of the Section of Litigation and a member of Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC, Lexington, Kentucky.
• Pages: 4-5

Opening Statement

Published in Litigation, Volume 45, Number 4, Summer 2019. © 2019 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not

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PALMER GENE VANCE II

The author is chair of the Section of Litigation and a member of Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC, Lexington,

Kentucky.

For this, my final Opening Statement, I

struggled a bit with selecting a topic. It fi-

nally occurred to me that I should share

with you the foundational reason that I

have the opportunity to write this column:

I love being a lawyer. More specifically, I

love being a trial lawyer. In my 29th year of

practice, I enjoy this work more than ever.

I fully realize that some of our col-

leagues do not have the same level of

satisfaction with this profession. A re-

cent survey from the Florida Bar Young

Lawyers Division revealed that 30 percent

of those surveyed would not enroll in law

school if they knew then what they know

now. Further, 33 percent of the respon-

dents indicated that they were very or

somewhat unsatisfied with their career

choice. These are disappointing, but not

surprising, results. As with almost any

profession, the law offers long hours, un-

certain pay, crippling student debt, chal-

lenging situations, and, too often, a lack of

guidance and empathy from those more

senior. Addressing these difficulties is the

obligation of the profession and the or-

ganized bar. Perhaps the best guidance I

can provide is to explain why I truly enjoy

being a lawyer and to offer my experience

as a case study for others.

More than 25 years ago, I had the op-

portunity to listen to an incoming presi-

dent of the Kentucky Bar Association ex-

plain to his audience why he was proud to

be a Kentucky lawyer. Parts of that speech

have stuck with me ever since, and I dug

the rest of it out of the library (yes, we

still have one—though it is smaller) as

research for this column. The theme of

those remarks revolved around lawyers

representing clients or acting in the pub-

lic sphere on behalf of unpopular or con-

troversial causes. The conclusion drawn

was that we should all be proud to be law-

yers because of the rights we vindicate,

the interests we protect, and the justice

system we serve. Those evergreen senti-

ments prompted the following thoughts

as to why I do love this work.

1. Lawyers have the opportunity to

help people. Reggie Love, the determined

protagonist in John Grisham’s The Client,

famously said, “You advised him not to

get a lawyer, giving as one of your reasons

the opinion that lawyers are a pain in the

ass. Gentlemen, the pain is here.” While

we should not try to be a pain, the basic

point is important. Lawyers have the re-

sponsibility to aid clients in presenting

their case and in achieving the best pos-

sible outcome. This is true whether the

client is an individual or an entity. Most

of my work involves representation of

companies in civil litigation. Their in-

terests are no less important than those

of individual clients. Our justice system

must provide a predictable method of

dispute resolution for all who invoke it.

Ensuring that the system works for all

types of litigants is critical to making sure

that it is fair for the individual litigant.

Providing representation for a criminal

defendant who is very likely guilty guar-

antees the same protections for the un-

justly accused.

As trial lawyers, we must also remem-

ber that resolution of the dispute in the

client’s interest must always be the goal.

Sometimes, that requires a trial. More of-

ten, it does not. As Gandhi reminded us in

his autobiography,

I realized that the true function of a

lawyer was to unite parties riven asun-

der. The lesson was so indelibly burnt

into me that a large part of my time dur-

ing the twenty years of my practice as

a lawyer was occupied in bringing

about private compromises of hun-

dreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby—

not even money, certainly not my soul.

Winning a case is an unparalleled ex-

perience, but a “good result” need not re-

quire that there be a winner and a loser.

THE JOY OF BEING A

L AW Y E R