A speech prepared but not given
Sometime in early 1979 for reasons now lost in the passage of time the great San Francisco trial lawyer, James Martin MacInnis, drafted a set of rough notes for a speech on the art of final argument in the trial of causes before the courts. MacInnis was himself a master of final argument and knew whereof he wrote. Sadly, before he could complete his draft he was killed in an automobile accident at Gough and Pacific streets in San Francisco when a car driven by a drunken driver broadsided his car, killing him and his wife. The Bar of San Francisco mourned the loss of one of the greatest among them.
MacInnis' notes in due course came into the hands of Bill Newsom, MacInnis' long-time friend, colleague, admirer and mimic (MacInnis once said to him, "Bill you tell this story, you do me better than I do myself."). Newsom took the notes and wrote the speech MacInnis had intended to write. He delivered it on MacInnis' behalf on the occasion of the dedication of the James Martin MacInnis Moot Court Room the Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco on October 21, 1981.
Here then is the speech conceived and drafted by MacInnis but written and delivered by Newsom -- the lawyer may learn from it, the layman may savor it (click on the image):
1 comments:
You write very well.
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