The most memorable day of my summer internship took place in court. My mentor had been preparing for a procedural hearing, and I got to spend weeks doing legal research to help shape some of her arguments. When the hearing came, I was there to watch each argument unfold.
The room was full, so full that some people were standing in the back. I had the chance to admire three lawyers in their robes as they spoke in turn, each with a distinct style. As my mentor pleaded so gracefully, I recognized the precedents I had researched. I witnessed the line of reasoning I had studied on my screen, now coming alive in court, the pieces all locking together in an oddly satisfying way. That’s when I felt, as a tingling at the back of my neck, just a glimpse of what people call the litigation rush. How intense it must be to act as more than a simple spectator.
On my way back home, I considered the mix of focus and excitement I had felt. Law. Reason. Litigation. Passion. I noticed a paradox here, which got me thinking of David Hume: “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
Lawyers step into court to argue reason, but are so often fueled by passion. Their role seems, at first glance, to be the very opposite of it: they are there to give voice to the law, to present the facts. The law should embody objectivity. Lawyers should embody reason itself. Yet, reason alone never moves the courtroom forward. Passion is what brings legal arguments to life.
So as Hume said, reason, by itself, can’t motivate action. Litigation, then, is passion dressed in reason. It all speaks to something more than logic.