Lawyer Minus the Briefcase

Mom was very thoughtful to give me that special link in her blog with the picture of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s briefcase. The picture beguiled me for a while that I can’t take off my eyes on it after minutes of reconnaissance. In the briefcase etched a monogram that named its owner and his address but apparently though the address indicated was that of Fitzgerald’s publisher.



I have my own bag right now which someone gifted me. It is made of synthetic leather looking very stylish but not so sturdy that in weeks’ time has seen its back pocket lock obliterated. I carry it wherever I go, during office days and even on weekends just to have that feel that I am not alone walking along the streets and in malls and is in the company of someone, I mean something. Sometimes I forget leaving the papers and books I put in it in my room when I go out during weekends leaving me carrying a heavy bag.

It dawned upon me just now that I should be considering buying a sturdy briefcase in the future to have something hold my pleadings and case folders securely so that they won’t be folded or crumpled and make people in the courtroom suspect that I am a swagman or a vagrant pretending to be a lawyer.

Briefcases are so called because it is used frequently by lawyers for their briefs. I looked for one in the shops today and found good and stylish ones worth their prices which are more than reasonable. But going back to Fitzgerald’s briefcase, the sight of it beguiled me because it breathed nostalgia so much that you can tell a whole-length story out of the thing itself. More than a memorabilia, treasured things like this briefcase follow their owners’ respective lives and histories. For one thing, the briefcase could tell that with him traveled a prolific and well-loved writer who journeyed literary spaces in search of materials only to find out that the treasure and the big catch lie in his innermost thoughts and suppressed memories only he could surface and recollect.

Taking literature aside, being a lawyer and a fledgling at that has its own misadventures to tell. If my own bag could only speak and chatter on how it witnessed many blunders among which is how a judge lambasted its owner of not wearing a coat in the judge’s chambers, it will gain disciples which will worship a new and fresh attitude towards unlawyering. By unlawyering, I mean people not getting themselves into the clutches of the law and the law profession. My mom recently gifted me a whole set of suit for my future appearances and for me look forward away from that traumatic incident and I am very thankful for it. I will finally suit up. . .

Minus the misadventures which you could also slip in your briefcase in eternity, being an attorney is a bewildering act which crosses multitudes of bother (am I being redundant on this?) that will either stunt or make you grow. By stunt, I am referring to how a judge proscribed a member of the bar by telling him to sell cheese balls instead on the streets and by grow, I do not mean getting richer but finding morals in a lot of real life stories which will let you understand that a lawyer is such because there are a lot of injustices happening every second of people’s lives.