523
The Right to Change One’s Name must have a considerable private in come, for he lives in delightful surround
ings and spends his winters in the South and summers abroad—practising law in between vacations. You will see his name in the papers in connection with golf and tennis but he never goes into the great tournaments, being entirely content to shine in the lesser affairs.
So there you have my best appreciation of the quickest and cleverest man that I have ever run across in the law— he was delightful but useless.
You may wonder why I have given
but rather with an aim at thorough pre paration, and with a knowledge that in the end careful and perfect preparation is worth more than all else in the legal practice of to-day. Third. He should have a breadth of experience and culture, and a quickness of intellectual powers that we saw in Mr. Golightly. On sudden calls and hasty jobs, that sort of quickness of
thought and agility of mental processes is of the utmost value. Fourth. Most important of all, the young man should have an overpowering
clerks-—the reason is simply because I have never found the perfect law clerk. So now in closing this commencement
interest in the firm’s business about which he is employed. That should be his interest in life for the time being and the interest should be so strong that no
address, which is already too long, let me tell you some of the characteristics
social engagements nor personal busi ness can impair it. He should have the
of my ideal of a law clerk. Iam not going to try to_ go over in detail all the elements that make up such an unseen and perhaps impossible person, but I confine myself to the four most important ones. First. He should have good clothes and attractive manners like Mr. Gay, so that he will be ornamental about the office and pleasing to the clients who happen to see him. Second. He should be a constant
employer's interest constantly at heart, from the smallest item of office expense or office arrangement up to and includ ing the firm's most difiicult and impor
you only fault finding accounts of law
tant legal matters.
Such a man will
not dash for the elevator as the clock strikes five, nor will he hesitate to work
and study half the night at the Bar Association. He will never be afraid that he may do more work than he is paid for — but no such clerk could last very long, because we would very
and steady worker like Mr. Stillman,
quickly insist upon his becoming a
so as to help maintain about the ofiice an atmosphere of business and busyness. But his work should not be for looks,
have to start the clerk hunt all over
member of our firm and then we would again.
The Right to Change One's Name‘ UDGE JAMES E. WITHROW of the St. Louis Circuit Court, who
recently passed on a question which in 1See 22 Green Bag 282.
volved the right of a person to change his name, has collected some interesting data on the ways in which such changes can be brought about. His conclusion is
