Lawyer Wellness. Law in the Time of COVID

• Author: Tatiana Sainati
• Pages: 9-10

Published in Litigation, Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2020. © 2020 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be

copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. 9

Headnotes illustrations by Sean Kane

the prominence of his family. He was not

physically impressive. He was strong only

in superb intellect. He was the coordina-

tor of the strategy and the selection of

speakers. He let others carry the main

speaking parts.

The debate played out at a very el-

emental level. The constitutionalists

argued that the decision was between

a functioning government, on the one

hand, and “licentiousness” and turbu-

lence, on the other. Even Patrick Henry

agreed that a national government might

prevent “licentiousness,” but he believed

that it would oppress and ruin the people.

In the chief executive, Henry saw the pow-

ers of a great and mighty king. He had seen

that act before.

It was not until the second week of the

debate that John Marshall spoke. The

opponents had chosen James Monroe, a

soldier in the Revolution, to speak (earn-

ing the “distinction” of being the only

president to vote against the Constitution).

But most soldiers during the Revolutionary

War were in favor. Marshall, who served

with Washington at Valley Forge, was the

constitutionalists’ choice to respond to

Monroe. Two-thirds of his remarks were

on the necessity of providing against a fu-

ture war. Henry opposed a standing army.

He viewed it as a most dangerous power.

He liked it even less than a strong executive.

Marshall did play a prominent role in

the debate over the judiciary. Article III

was generally thought to be one of the

weakest points of the constitutionalists’

battle lines. Marshall had been practic-

ing law for all of five years when he gave

the major defense of the article. The an-

ti-constitutionalists were convinced that

the interests of debtors and farmers would

not be served by a national court system.

They advanced a laundry list of potential

abuses. Marshall went through the list

and showed how those imagined abuses

potentially existed in the state court sys-

tems as well. His simple language yet pow-

erful arguments were a prelude to much of

what he later wrote about the Constitution. q

LAWYER WELLNESS

Law in the Time

of COVID

TATIANA SAINATI

The author is an attorney with Wiley Rein, LLP,

in Washington, D.C., and an associate editor of

Litigation.

The rampant spread of the COVID-19 virus

across the globe has attacked what makes

us human: our impulse to connect. We are

social beings, forced into isolation by an

enemy we cannot see. In the short term,

the extreme separation leads to feelings of