Things Legal

NZ Truth, Issue 1148, 1 December 1927, Page 6

Things Legal

DUNCH and pep are an excellent L seasoning for the dish of crossexamination and no member of the legal fraternity m Christchurch appreciates this more than - does Lawyer "Bill" Stacey. One of the young men of the profession, William J. Stacey is one of the breed that comes to the fore by dint of sheer personality allied to a keen knowledge of all things legal. When cross-examination brings him to his feet, woe betide the witness who ia playing a game of bluff. The slightest discrepancy m evidence Stacey pounces on at once and this uncanny gift of remembering m detail what may have been said half an hour before has earned him the reputation of being a hard man to bluff or side-track. But Stacey's social and legal complexes are as unlike as chalk and cheese. Inside the court one sees the man with a razor-edged mind, quickly perceptive and the master of detail, but when he goes home for the day out comes tennis racquet or his car and one sees "Bill," the man with a perpetual smile and a ready handshake and a joke for all. And outside the office the last thing he will talk is "shop."