  To attorneys, advocates, and counsellors all, I’m not afraid to speak to you about your call; Not afraid to give advice, I’m one of you, You may heed, or I don’t care what you do. You give advice and charge for the same; Mine I freely give, and you get the gain. When you get free what to others you sell, You’ve something to brag about and tell. I like you, you bunch of jolly good fellows, Though you sometimes lunch like Col. Sellers. And your Sunday suit gets so slick, That a fly cannot walk on it and stick. You too are letting people into your trade. Deeds and legal papers are so easily made, By real estate agents filling out blanks Those you write are paid for in thanks. You sit in your office with high-propped feet, Longing for a friend to invite you out to eat, Or waiting for a client to bring around a fee. Sometimes you read or skip around in glee, To make the impression that your mind is free; And that you have plenty of work to do; And never for a moment take a solemn view Of how fast business is flying away from you. Some of you are learning on a motor cycle to ride, So when an accident occurs you are by the side Of the injured one to get a damage suit Against the company whose coffers you’d loot. Some of you join the gang and get in politics, To get some legal job they may help you fix. One of you stirs up strife against divorce, And gets to be proctor on the welfare force, And gets a small salary as a matter of course. Some get to be orators public affairs to discuss. And get the press over you to make a fuss; In that way you advertise your brains good To swing a big case and get a livelihood. Some join with unions to fight against the trusts, Others against the unions sling their deadly thrusts. Thus in battle array, some right and some wrong, We manage in some way to push ourselves along. The race of the old-time lawyers is nearly extinct To whose memory my fond thoughts are linked. I know a few whose names I’ll not give to you Owing to my plan I intend to follow through, Not to give names unless to represent a crew. You know some yourself not in the law for pelf; I’m one myself if into my record you care to look, If I hadn’t been I need not have written a book To make a little stake to put away for a rainy day. Lawyers are not dishonest, no matter what you say, Except when they serve you to get their pay. They have to be deceiving to keep up with you: You will not take your case you wish to sue To some attorney who could not stand for you. You know the attorney stands in your place, And to an honest one you dare not show your face. I’ve known lawyers who courted the name of crook, Merely to catch grafters on their own hook. You know well when you are sued that you choose An attorney who will by any ruse, you excuse To the jury who tried your case for the deeds, You did, and you know you did not get your meeds. So shut up your mouth and hie yourself home; The subject of judges and lawyers leave alone. Lawyers have always been pillars of the state To uphold our institutions you’d annihilate. Their trade is not alone on paper made; It comes from growth by development’s aid. It’s the garnered experience of all the ages, Written in books upon numberless pages. It has stood when empires fell, When to the despots they did loudly tell Of justice upon him the law’d compel; It has stood against strife, slaughter and blood, When other trades and institutions never could; It rises in the right, iniquity to fight, To protect the weak against men of might, Over widows and orphans its protecting arm Is extended to save the mortgaged farm; It shields the criminal against the crazy mob Giving him a trial of which they’d him rob. For peace and order and justice in the land Let us ever as true lawyers stand.
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