By Charles Kramer
Black Friday shopping sales started two weeks before Thanksgiving this year. Cyber Monday, the shopping Monday the week after thanksgiving, also started early – on the Wednesday before turkey day. Clearly, nobody feels the need to wait for Christmas to actually arrive any more, so why should we? Consider this your INITIAL Christmas column. It’s fitting, actually, for reasons that will become clear, despite some initial confusion.
To learn why we attorneys take our little sabatacles, we must look back to near the turn of the last century, and the strange events of 1901.
On December 24, 1901, an attorney known by the initials W.M. shot and wounded a client who went by the initials W.L. Lawyer W.M.’s last name was Little. I don’t mean it was a small or unimportant name, I mean it was literally “Little”—as in Chicken Little (but apparently no relation). His client/victim had the last name of “Dodd.” Over the years there have been many a lawyer named Dodd, but this time Dodd was the client. He was also an accused mail-frauder.
In any event, there it was, Christmas eve 1901, and Lawyer Little (who, by the way, had also been ambassador to Honduras during the Grover Cleveland administration) was trying desperately to figure out a defense for Dodd, who was accused of using the mail for fraudulent purposes in connection with a debenture redemption scheme. Although Santa’s arrival was somewhat imminent, the weather was hardly frightful, as the W’s were playing out their mini-drama in Birmingham Alabama, where it seldom, if ever, snows.
The pressure of the trial was taking its toll on Little, and he came to the conclusion that something different had to be done. It is not clear whether his clouded mental state caused Mr. Little to erroneously believe that defending a man accused of mail fraud was a capital defense, or whether he suddenly decided that some force of nature had decided that his mortal clock had simply expired.
What is clear, however, is that Mr Little decided, under the strain of the moment, that his time was up, and he was going to die. He ventured into his client’s room at the Inn next door to the court house, and declared to his startled client that he would need a new lawyer because his current lawyer (Little himself) was going to die.
While W.L. looked on stunned, W.M. matter of factly declare his representation to be over. W.L. asked how Little knew he was going to die, but received no response. He asked if his lawyer, or more
correctly his now ex-lawyer, believed his end would come, at which point Lawyer Little noticed a pistol laying on the table—such things being common in 1901—picked it up and fired.
Strangely, however, Little did not put the gun to his own head or fire in his own direction, despite his dying declaration. Instead he fired wildly, hitting Dodd in the process. Only one bullet hit the man, and apparently he eventually recovered.
It is known that a mistrial was called. It is not known, however, whether there was ever a re-trial or whether Little’s pistol wielding was ultimately the only available—and effective—defense.
W.M. Little was diagnosed with severe sleep deprivation and strain, and was told to take at least four weeks off, without any practice of law—a respite which has become known as a “Little Vacation.”
So, this Christmas, when your lawyer says he will be unavailable because he is taking a “Little vacation,” don’t argue with him. Be happy for these trips named after the once great and famous ambassador, W.M.Little. It is these brief sojourns to regain mental strength that keeps client’s safe, world over.
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Under Analysis is a nationally syndicated column. Charles Kramer is a principal of the St. Louis, Missouri law firm Riezman, Berger, P.C. You may direct comments or criticisms about this column to the Levison Group c/o this newspaper, or direct to the Levison Group via e-mail, at comments@levisongroup.com.
© 2012 Under Analysis L.L.C.
