A Critique of Harry J. Lambeth’s Practicing Law in 1878

A Critique of Harry J. Lambeth’s Practicing Law in 1878

Jessica Burt
Michael Orf
History Since 1875
November 17, 2014
A Critique of Harry J. Lambeth’s Practicing Law in 1878
In the article Practicing Law in 1878, Harry J. Lambeth describes the life of the lawyer from the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age was a period in time in which economic growth generated vast wealth, and politicians were mostly corrupt and often inadequate. He presents this story in the form of an article in which he shares his arguments and analysis as a lawyer. This critique will review Lambeth’s article. Also, this critique will evaluate the quality of Lambeth’s writing and focus on any areas of weakness or strengths within the article.
First of all, Lambeth opens his article by describing what life was like in 1878. In order to take the reader’s imagination back to the late 1800’s, he talks about the fact that there were no telephones, typewriters, or automobiles during this period. Lambeth stated, 1“Instead it was a world of circuit-riding lawyers and store-front, walk-up law offices with brass spittoons, pot-bellied stoves, and overhead gaslights or kerosene lamps to illuminate mammoth rolltop desks and ramrod straight chairs.” Today the United States population is nearly 320,000,000; however, according to Lambeth the population in the 1870’s was around 50,000,000. Only 60,000 of the 50,000,000 were lawyers. Lambeth’s article is starting off in good direction by tapping into the readers imagination, and giving the reader a good understanding of how different life must have been in the late 1800’s.
Next, Lambeth explained how law education was on the rise in the late 1800’s. Amended in 1851, The Indiana Constitution permitted that 2“every person of good moral character being a voter,” would then be eligible for admittance to the bar and practice law in all courts of justice.” This means that any man can practice law without any education. Due to the lack of education, from my interpretation of the article, many lawyers were often harshly...

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