Corbett, Tom

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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Law Faculty Publications School of Law 2005 The Lawyer-Advocate vs. The Poet-Advocate Tom Corbett Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/law-faculty-scholarship  Part of the Law Commons Repository Citation Corbett, T. (2005). The Lawyer-Advocate vs. The Poet-Advocate. Widener Law Journal, 14 (3). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/law-faculty-scholarship/85 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. THE LAWYER-ADVOCATE VS.THE POET-ADVOCATE*Attorney General Tom Corbett"Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be here with you today. I'mpleased to be here as the Attorney General. After two years ofcampaigning, I get to be a lawyer again instead of a candidate, andI look forward to being just that.Let me begin by making it clear that none of my remarks thisafternoon will be in verse. I just don't have that talent. Now JusticeEakin is the only one that I know in this room brave enough toattempt that, especially from the bench. And I suspect he's goingto spend some time entertaining you with his ability to be musical.I have no intention of singing. I got kicked out of the choir when Iwas in third grade, and I haven't sung since then. If you see mesinging, I'm lip-syncing. About the only thing that I have incommon with Bruce Springsteen, besides age, is that we're bothborn in the USA.With that as a background, I'd like to talk to you aboutadvocacy and about storytelling. Poetry is involved in the job thatlawyers do, and particularly, from my perspective, poetry is wheremost of my career has been founded as a prosecutor.Webster's dictionary defines an advocate as "one [who] pleadsthe cause of another,"' or "one [who] pleads the cause of anotherbefore a tribunal or judicial court."2 As the Attorney General ofPennsylvania, I believe that the role of advocacy and the role of alawyer stretch far beyond that definition. But let's use that as thebasis, as our benchmark to start from.Attorney General Tom Corbett, Address at the Widener Law JournalSymposium, The Lawyer as Poet Advocate: Bruce Springsteen and theAmerican Poet (Feb. 24, 2005).Attorney General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISHLANGUAGE UNABRIDGED 32 (Philip Babcock Gove et al. eds., 1986).2id.WIDENER LAW JOURNALThe definition of poet, according to Webster, is "one whowrites poetry."3 Obviously, that makes sense, but it's "a writerhaving great imaginative and expressive gifts and possessing aspecial sensitivity to language.",4 Justice Eakin knows the lyricalvery well. I haven't seen that many lyrical writers or lawyersbesides Justice Eakin, except maybe in my Allegheny County BarAssociation when we used to put on a play at our Bar Associationconference in the summertime. I've seen many whose work Ibelieve is perceptive, is expressive, and whose work is evenbeautiful. There is no doubt that we as lawyers-and if we haveany law students here, when you become lawyers-are advocates.As Attorney General, I have the opportunity to speak in thedefense of the Commonwealth, our constitution, and our laws. Ialso plead the case of our citizens who have been wronged andseek justice for those who cannot seek it on their own.Additionally, I have the honor of speaking for the law enforcementcommunity-advocating for changes in law and for additionalresources to address new threats to public safety and to the way welive our lives, to the way we work, and to the way we raise ourfamilies.I hesitate to use the word poets to describe the role of lawyers.But we must certainly be considered good storytellers, especially ifwe are going to be in a courtroom. We must be able to carry ourmessage to a diverse audience. Sometimes we are called to tell ourstory in the court, either to the judge, justices, or to a jury. Othertimes we need to tell our story to the public, to the lawmakers, tothe media, or to a community. Like a performer, a good lawyerworks to make that message clear and compelling and isenthusiastic and authoritative in his or her delivery.Unlike a performer, however, the consequences of a "badshow" are far greater. A performance by an entertainer may leavethe audience disappointed, variety may not be very good, orreviews may not be very good. A poor performance by a lawyercould place a client in a life or death situation, place a client in theface of financial ruin, or could allow the innocent to be imprisonedor the guilty to go free.3 Id. at 1748.4 Id. at 1748-49.738 [Vol. 14LAWYER-ADVOCATE VS. POET-ADVOCATEWe, as lawyers, deal with people's lives and often have peoplein dire situations. We give them hope, and we give them guidance.We work to settle conflict and to mediate disputes. We fight forour clients and do what we believe is correct or right.Poets may also advocate a point of view. But, in my opinion,there is one major difference between the poet and the advocate, atleast when it comes to the law. We, as lawyers, are bound to thetruth and to the law. Rule 3.3 of the Rules of Professional Conductprovides, "A lawyer shall not knowingly ... make a falsestatement of fact or law ... or offer evidence that the lawyerknows to be false."5 Poets, on the other hand, have the luxury ofcreating their own atmosphere, their own reality. They controleverything about a situation-how it begins, how it develops, andhow it will end. Our advocacy and our job are based in truth and infact. A poet's advocacy is based in emotion, in personalexperience, perception, or a desire for change, regardless of thefactual realities of a situation. Poets can bend a story any way theychoose, creating the environment they need, conveying theirmessage to generate the response-the visceral reaction-that theywish to engender. They seek to spark that reaction; they seek tospark that emotional response. We, on the other hand, must deal infacts with the situation, the people, and the law as it is, whetherthat be good, bad, or indifferent.I had a t-shirt given to me one time when I went to law schoolthat said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle themwith words." If you can't argue the law, argue the facts. If youcan't argue the facts, argue the law. And if you can't argue either,just try to confuse them.In many instances, we are faced with the task of seeking thebest possible outcome from the worst possible scenario. It is thedifference between fiction and non-fiction; between escape andreality; between entertainment and reality. The world that poetsand entertainers create today, however, I believe is increasinglyaltering the public perception of the real world that we live in, andparticularly, that we work in--exotic crime labs identifying vitalevidence at the last minute, criminalists carrying firearms,dedicated investigators solving complex crimes in a matter of5 MODEL RULES OF PROF'L CONDUCT R. 3.3(a)(1), (3) (2004).2005] 739WIDENER LAW JOURNALminutes, and prosecutors using dramatic courtroom presentationsto win convictions. In the end, our potential jury pool always seesthat the bad guy almost always goes to jail and the good guysprepare to do it all again the next week. Many people in that jurypool have never seen the days, the months, and the years of workon both sides of the aisle.When we are talking about a prosecution or a civil case thatgoes into these types of cases, society's expectations aredramatically different from the reality. Does that mean that everypolice department that doesn't have a CSI lab is doing a poor job?No. That every court case that doesn't end with a "Law and Order"cliffhanger is faulty? No. Are we creating that through thestorytelling, through the poets we have today? We are in an erawhere people can't focus on a public discussion for more thanfifteen minutes because that's when the television commercial isgoing to cut in. It can be very difficult for a jury, or the public tocomprehend a court case that may take years to play out.I'll watch "Law and Order," but my wife won't watch it withme because I'll say, "They can't do that." We know the fiction thatit is. People believe that it's reality. It is always amazing to see thatthe case begins and ends in a conviction in about four weeks oftheir time. Well, we all know that's not reality, but the peopledon't because the poet has the liberty to do as they wish with thefacts.That's not to say that we cannot and should not do more aslawyers to be compelling storytellers. We are craftspeople,carefully selecting our words and meticulously building a case toaccomplish our purpose-our advocacy. We work on pace andtempo, on how people respond to information and how to keeppeople interested and involved in a case. You want to keep thatjury awake, don't you? Did anyone ever have a jury member fallasleep? How about a judge fall asleep?As a young assistant district attorney, I'm trying a homicidecase right after lunch. It is July in Allegheny County, and thecourtroom is warm. The judge just turns his back to everybody. Allof a sudden we hear snoring. Now, I have a witness on the stand,the defense lawyer is looking at me, I'm looking at the defenselawyer-what are we going to do? We've lost the judge. The onlything I could do was to pick up my book and drop it on the table.[Vol. 14LAWYER-ADVOCATE VS. POET-ADVOCATEWe woke him up. Maybe it was my fault that he fell asleepbecause I was asking boring questions. We have to be entertaining.I'll share one other quick story with you. I was in the middleof my examination of a witness, and I hear the door to thecourtroom open. I must have really been boring because there goesa juror out the door. Aaah! It was an alternate sitting right next tothe door; he just got up and left. I stopped questioning. The judge,who was an older gentleman, Nathan Swartz, said, "Mr. Corbett,why aren't you continuing questioning your witness?" I said,"Judge, we lost a juror." Everybody kind of laughed. The jurorwasn't bored, just nature was calling, and he had to go and use therestroom.Maybe we should be a little more entertaining. But while weare entertaining, we do not need to confuse the entertainer with thelawyer. The storytelling remains grounded in the facts of the case.Advocacy cannot overshadow the issue we are advocating.For myself, my position as a line prosecutor to an AttorneyGeneral or to a United States Attorney, I prefer to focus on thepower of the truth over the attraction of entertainment, thesubstance of fact over the style of song lyrics. Poets may try tohighlight a cause, to bring about change, and to right what iswrong; but as lawyers and as advocates, we accomplish that everyday. I can think of no better job than that of being a lawyeradvocate. Thank you.2005]

The Lawyer-Advocate vs. The Poet-Advocate

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