LAW STUDENTS’ DEBATING SOCIETY

Evening Star, Issue 19855, 2 May 1928, Page 6

LAW STUDENTS’ DEBATING SOCIETY

MR CALLAN'S ADDRESS it was to a very line attendance that Mr Callan lectured on Monday evening upon the question ‘ How To Get a Statement of Fact from Your Client.’ It was a matter, Mr Callan remarked, requiring a great deal of tact and discretion. One had to bear in mind the following difficulties: — 1. The client presumably doc not know the law. Yet the relative significance of the facts that he has to relate is to be judged in accordance with legal rules. What the client considers of little importance might frequently to the mind learned in these rules appear of great importance. Hence it was the difficult task of the solicitor to lead the mind of the client to what appealed to him as productive fields of inquiry, although to the client himself they might seem mere trivial detail.

2. The client frequently does nc/t properly know even the facts, although he may bo honestly certain of his intimate acquaintance with them, and might he very much offended if one were openly to doubt his statement. Yet with, respect at least to that large class of cases involving some sudden unlooked-for happening, the time of the court was most frequently taken up by disputes upon some matter of fact, concerning which every witness was equally sure of the correctness of his own account and equally certain of the incorrectness of the story told by some other witness. The trouble lay not in untruthfulness on the part of either, but on the far more human and widespread tailing of Sanity observaliun. Mr Callan illustrated his remarks wih amusing instances, some from his own experience. ,‘j. The varying temperaments of clients also provided much difficulty. There was, for instance, the incoherent client of somewhat untrained mind, of whom one must bo tolerant and patient. Then there was the mentally lazy client, who had not trouble to think the facts out properly arid whom one must tactfully induce to a certain amount of unwelcome thought. In family cases one met the brooding client suffering from a bitter sense ol injury, who tended to imagine -gs. Then one might mention tV: overconscientious client, who was so afraid of making any statement of which lie was not absolutely certain that he boggled at petty matters. Last ol all, one might mention the actually dishonest client, for many folk had an impression that litigation Avas a game the object of Avhich Avas to hoodwink the bench. All these clients had to be treated in a different way,, and. in fact, scarcely any rule, but only common sense, could be advised.