Advice from Atticus

 As an attorney, I have often talked with young people considering a career as a lawyer, some of whom had already been accepted and were asking for my advice.  I always tell them the same thing.  Read To Kill a Mockingbird.  

The wisdom in that book by Harper Lee is the best advice I can offer.  It is the story of a Southern attorney asked to represent a young black man wrongly accused.  His young daughter is taunted at school for the fact that her father has agreed to represent a Black man.  Those who taunted her used a vulgar word, which she repeated to her father' 

Before explaining why he had agreed to represent the young man, he corrected her use of the vulgar word.  

She tries to justify using the vulgar word by saying " 'its what everybody at school says."  Her father replies, "From now on it will be everybody less one--"

He gives his daughter a little description of the young black man, gently personalizing who he is, but admitting that "There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man."

She responds, "If you shouldn't be defendn' him, then why are you doin' it?

"For a number of reasons," said Atticus.  "The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again."  

"You mean that if you didn't defend that man, Jem and me wouldn't have to mind you any more?"

"That's about right."

"Why?'

"Because I could never ask you to mind me again.  Scout, simply by the nature of the work every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.  This one's mine, I guess.  You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will:  you just hold your head high and keep those fists down.  No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat.  Try fighting with your head for a change...it's a good one, even if it does resist learning."

I don't know how many young women and men have taken my advice and have read "To Kill a Mockingbird" but I hope that some did.  If you have not read it, I would encourage you to find a copy and read it.  

Harper Lee was well known for declining to correspond with her fans.  I never expected a reply, but I decided to write to her.  To my complete surprise, she replied.  She was elderly at that time, and she apologized for her shaky writing, but she filled two pages in reply to what I had shared in my letter.  Her letter is one of my greatest treasures. 

A personal note:

Some of you who follow this blog know that I graduated from Baylor University School of Law and practiced in Texas for several years until my husband's career took us to Georgia and North Carolina, where I took the bar and was licensed in both of those states.  However, my career path changed to publishing 3 books, written for general readers but researched in depth.  I started sharing this blog while writing "Prairie Bachelor, The Story of a Kansas Homesteader & the Populist Movement".  My goal has always been to inform readers in a way that is interesting, and I try to do the same with this blog.  I think Harper Lee did the same thing in "To Kill a Mockingbird".  She did not try to lecture her readers, but she told a story that gave her readers food for thought.

I believe we live in troubled times today.  I try to do what Harper Lee did.  I try to give you food for thought, and a perspective you may not have considered.  A great deal of research goes into each blog I write.  I don't intend to tell you what to think, but I hope I may give you something to think about.