Foreword The Lawyer: A Material Witness

• Author: George Elliott Clarke
• Pages: 7-11

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The Lawyer: A Material Witness

   the lawyer is, for the la ity, one of dread and awe. She is

an intermediar y between opposing part ies, yes, but the lawyer is also an

emissary of Fate itself: dest inies and fortunes hinge on the talent, the ar t,

the ability of this lea rned person to describe the complexity of a conun-

drum and to prof‌fer its most just resolution. In Ca nadian court s, in his

black robes, the lawyer even shows a Gothic cast , and blends, in decorum

and diction, the majest y of monarchy and the mystery of clergy. In tur n

lauded and scorned—laurelled in one inst ance, tarred and feathered in

another—the lawyer is never viewed as a n innocent apparition. No, she is

material—consequentia l—to public constitution and private conduct, to

af‌fairs of state a nd the accounts of enterprise. In every d ispute or poten-

tial contest, the f‌igu re of the lawyer emerges, perhaps vague at f‌ir st—in a

letterhead statement, but possibly, later, as gesticulating actor in cour t. In

any society that procla ims that authority derives from enforceable codes,

the lawyer is materia l to the issuance and interpretation of said ru les.

The irony of the material ity of the lawyer is that hi s intervention in

any question is grounded in the usu ally invisible and weightless “i mmater-

iality” of speech, of debate, of arg ument. A lawyer is fund amentally an

advocate, and her vocation is to advance argument. It is this sumptuous,

inherently gadf‌ly position, that e arns the lawyer both reward and oppro-

brium. According to the popular opin ion, that a lawyer can argue th at day

is night and night is day, proves only that he has a genius for prevaric ation.