the.com/lawyer
a hired memory for the fine print everyone else swore they read
means a person trained and licensed to practice law, advising clients and arguing their cases in legal matters
from From Middle English lauier, lawer — simply 'one who works with law.' The word law itself comes from Old English lagu, borrowed from Old Norse lag, meaning something 'laid down' or fixed in place — the same root sense as things laid flat or settled. So a lawyer is, at heart, a worker of what has been laid down: a tender of fixed rules.
- first lawyers
- Ancient Rome banned charging fees, so they did anyway
- billable hour
- invented in the 1950s, regretted ever since
- latin armor
- jargon survives partly to justify the bill
- odds
- most U.S. cases settle before any trial
- objection
- real courtrooms rarely shout it like television
johnnie cochran — defended o.j. simpson in the 1995 trial that captivated america
thurgood marshall — argued brown v. board of education in 1954, ending school segregation
gloria allred — los angeles civil rights attorney who represented harvey weinstein accusers in 2017