The Art of Advocacy

Book excerpt: In this book, which was first published in 1954, U.S. defense attorney Lloyd Paul Stryker takes the reader through every step of a case: the first meeting with the client, the questions to find the facts, the arrival in court on the first day of the trial, the selection of jurors, the carefully collected information about the characters of the judge and the prosecuting attorney, the importance of the opening address and the summation. Above all, he reveals the fascinating art of cross-examination which he considered to be the greatest weapon in the arsenal of a trial lawyer. The author clears up for all time the matter of legal ethics, of a defense attorney’s responsibility to undertake a defense, and under what circumstances he must refuse it. Also, he tells wonderfully exciting stories about the famous trial lawyers of an earlier day—Martin W. Littleton, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate—as well as such modern greats as Robert Jackson and John W. Davis.