Strong Advocate: The Life of a Trial Lawyer

4. I Want to Be a Lawyer

38 4 I Want to Be a Lawyer Everyone in the family knew that I was deeply affected by Mother’s death.Great-Uncle S.M.Sewell,concerned that I might not continue my education, gave me a dictionary and urged me to enroll in college immediately. He need not have worried. Even in grade school at Bennett, when not one penny could be wasted , there was no doubt that I would go to college. After all, as Mother reminded me, I lived in a nation where a person born in a log cabin could become president of the United States. I was smart, she said, and could accomplish anything I set my mind to if I just applied myself. The school year at Southwest Missouri State College (SMS), now Missouri State University, was divided into four equal terms: fall, winter, spring, and summer. A student earned 2.5 credit hours per major course, and it took 124 credit hours to graduate, so a degree could be earned by taking a “full load”— four major courses plus a one-hour course each term, except the summer term, for four years. However, students could earn 3 credit hours in a course, instead of the normal 2.5, if they made an E, the highest grade awarded. Thus, by attending two summers and receiving extra credit for good grades, I graduated at the age of twenty in three calendar years, after attending eleven terms instead of the normal twelve. I Want to Be a Lawyer 39 When I enrolled for the summer term a few days after Mother ’s funeral, still somewhat in shock, I was thinking only of signing up for some courses to get the new experience started. When the adviser asked about my intended major, I replied, “I don’t know.”“What do you want to be when you graduate?”she asked. “A lawyer,” I replied, completely surprising myself since I still had been telling those who inquired that I was going to be a preacher. But I did not correct my statement because it felt comfortable and correct. I did want to be a lawyer, I finally admitted to myself, and I wanted to be a good one. My decision surprised not only me, but everyone in my family , for I had never mentioned the legal profession as one that intrigued me. From 1630, when Elder John Strong landed in what is now Massachusetts, to the present, I know of no lawyer in my father’s lineage. On Mother’s side, only ancestor Patrick Henry, some two centuries before, had been an attorney. I doubt if Mother and Dad ever consulted a lawyer. On the few occasions I recall them being mentioned, it was in an uncomplimentary way. I recollect Dad’s often repeated joke about the gravestone inscribed “Here lies a lawyer and an honest man.” “When did they start burying two men in the same grave?” was the punch line. After I made my decision, Grandma always introduced me,“This is my grandson Tommy. He is going to be a lawyer, but we hope he will be an honest one.” No one had encouraged me to enter the profession. No one had spoken of it in a laudable way. I had made the decision on my own, and I was excited and proud of it. After explaining to the adviser that I wanted to be a trial lawyer , one who needed to speak persuasively, she suggested that I major in speech. I could change my major later if I desired, she said. Instead, speech was the perfect choice. I took Fundamentals of Speech, Argumentation, Advanced Argumentation, 40 Strong Advocate Orations, Extemporaneous Speaking, Public Address, Speech Correction, Speech Science, Phonetics, and, of course, Debate. The teachers were excellent. I learned how to emphasize a word, phrase, or thought by a gesture or measured pause; how to speak succinctly, packing a lot of information into the fewest possible sentences; how to vary the pitch, speed, and volume of my words so as to retain the attention of the audience; and how to incorporate humor, logic, and facts to make a point. Speaking is a science as well as an art! The aforementioned prepared me well for debate competition under the supervision of the incomparable Dr. Virginia Craig. Craig, a spinster who retired at age seventy-six in 1952, the year I graduated, was a member of...