WCL Raskin Book

Dear Jamie, Your advocacy will be remembered and celebrated. Great advocacy locates itself in moments of historical time, summoning recollections of the past as guides to the present and future. Great advocacy speaks of the evidence and empowers the deciders to honor their oaths while respecting their own power to see and hear the truth. The great advocate is a bit — just a bit — self-effacing, to remind everybody that the matter is not about him or her, or this or that decider’s personal concerns, but rather about an issue that is important to a great many people who have entrusted it to the speaker and the hearers. That is, these decisions are made by the participants, but for the many. The advocate’s words are didactic, to be sure, but he or she reminds the deciders that their decision — their courage or cowardice —will teach a lesson as well. As Andrew Hamilton reminded the jury in the Zenger case — in words that lighted the way to independence: “The question before you, gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of the poor printer, nor of New York alone. . . It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty.” The advocate’s work reminds us of Monet’s impressionistic paintings, making the real world come alive by the careful arrangement of images into a persuasive whole. And then: the courage to see injustice and to speak about it. Jamie, you did all of this, and found your power in a time of your own sadness. Michael Tigar