TRADE TRIPPER; The practice of law and IEL
I always had a certain idea of what the legal profession is, and such idea and passion have been magnified ever since I started focusing on international economic law. Every lawyer worth the name sees the legal profession - and indubitably himself - in light of Thomas More's characterization in A Man for All Seasons, Al Pacino's idealistic lawyer in ... And Justice For All, or Jeremy Northam's brilliant and sedate barrister in The Winslow Boy. There is always that picture kept in everyone of us of justifying our membership in the profession by doing what the profession was designed to do, which is - as succinctly put in The Winslow Boy: that right be done. Usually that concept of right is identified with helping the poor, the downtrodden, the helpless. Thus, Northam's character's plea near the end of The Winslow Boy has always brought a special resonance through the years and serves as a call to most lawyers: "you shall not side with the great against the powerless."