Rhetoric is Noble
I read all the time. When it isn't law it's history or philosophy. My wife thinks I have too many books. She can't figure out why I keep bringing books home when I haven't finished the ones I already have. My answer is why have a library if you've already read all the books in it.
In any event, reading history often times confirms my belief that we our profession is in fact very noble. For example, the art of rhetoric died out during the Middle Ages. It was resuscitated during the Italian Renaissance in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Humanism was alive again and the leaders of the Renaissance began to uncover all of the old texts from Greece and Rome that were harbored in monasteries all over Europe. Among those texts were volumes on rhetoric like Quinitilian's (a lawyer by trade) Institutia Oratoria. During the Renaissance it was believed that men knew the difference between the good and the bad and had the capacity to do the good. But, they needed to be inspired and motivated to do the good. That is where rhetoric came in. It was seen as the means by which the leaders would inspire the people to do good. So when you are in front of a jury think to your self that like lawyers of old you are there to inspire the jury to do the right thing, to rule in your client's favor because it is just and good.
