On Sunday night I was at once encouraged and amused to see at Reagan National Airport (DCA) a corridor advertisement placed by an American law firm with a bold, triumphant and “innovative” reminder. Apparently addressed to Prospective Clients Everywhere, the ad proclaimed, in effect, that Clients, Not Lawyers, are the Main Event, i.e., “hey, we’re your friends–we’re not like the others”. Well, bravo to that firm. But should it take centuries for the legal profession to catch on that lawyering is never about lawyers? Why a reminder about the most basic fact of the profession? Our Roman friend Cicero argued his first case on behalf of a charge or “client” over 2,000 years ago. Are we ever going to get it?
“Young Cicero Reading”, Vincenzo Foppa (1464).