Abraham Lincoln, as we’re sometimes reminded around this time of year, made a living as a practicing lawyer, much of it in trial practice. For some reason this website has never gotten around to citing……

And see “Lincoln’s Message to lawyers and litigators” at shlep.

Thanks, Evan, for yet another grace note to this humble weblog.  It’s an excellent anecdote (and antidote, too).
How does a busy p/i lawyer find so much time for weblog perusal, commentary and authorship?  Living off your windfalls?

p.s. I meant to get back to you re Elvis Costello.  I’m also a fan of his, although I lost track of him around 1985.  Among my faves: “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives,” “Red Shoes,” (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding.” 

David: As you know, I was one of the fans of your Lincoln post. Here’s an anecdote about one of Lincoln’s largest fees from “Lincoln” by David Herbert Donald. After Lincoln won a major case for the Illinois Central Railroad, he billed the railroad $2,000. The railroad scoffed at the bill, saying it was “as much as Daniel Webster himself would have charged.” Lincoln then asked some of his fellow attorneys what they would have charged, and he submitted a revised bill for $5,000. Again the railroad refused to pay, so Lincoln sued.

Donald continues: “At the hearing before David Davis in McLean County, Lincoln argued his own case, pointing out that his fee was not unreasonable. Had the decision gone the other way, the railroad company would have had to pay out half a million dollars a year in local taxes. The court promptly returned a verdict in his favor … The action did not interrupt his amicable relationship with the Illinois Central Railroad, which he continued to represent in numerous subsequent cases.”

That fee is about $104,166 in today’s dollars — not even close to being “tobacco money,” as my friends call it, so your points about modern lawyers are well taken. Judge David Davis was later appointed by Lincoln to the U.S. Supreme Court and served for fifteen years.

And a final, unrelated thought: If Lincoln had been practicing today just to the South in Madison County, Illinois, the newspapers would have pointed to Davis’s Supreme Court appointment as a quid pro quo for the fee decision. And maybe the newspapers *did* say that back then — when it comes to lawyers and politics, things haven’t changed all that much.