REFRESHER EDUCATION FOR LAWYER VETERANS
| Author | Sidney Post Simpson.Lieut.‐Colonel |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1946.tb00994.x |
| Published date | 01 April 1946 |
| Date | 01 April 1946 |
REFRESHER
EDUCATION
FOR
LAWYER
VETERANS
I
THE
bar of the common law world has given largely to the
cause
of
the United Nations. Quite apart
from
the contribu-
tions to
our
common victory of lawyers in Government service
and war industry on both sides
of
the Atlantic, many thousands
of men and women of
our
profession have served in uniform
from Newfoundland to the Siegfried Line and from Singapore
to Okinawa. More than
25,000
lawyers and almost as many
law students have served in the American armed forces, mostly
in
the combat branches.' They have been deck officers and
se';tmcn
in
the Navy and Coast Guard, they have commanded
infantry
or
nrtillt~y
or
tanks
or
served in the ranks in the
Army
and Marine
Corps.
They have not,
€or
the most part, been
serving as lawyers, but as fighting soldiers and sailors and
marines.
Now they are coming back, their immediate job done,
most
of
them anxious to return to the practice of their chosen
profession. And they are
at
a disadvantage.
For
that matter,
all vetcrans are at
a
disadvantage in an unstable post-war
economy. Our veterans have lost time; they have
lost
training
;
they have lost civilian experience and contacts.
Their war experience is mostly not an asset in the business
world
or
in the professions. Even the doctors, who have been
exercising their professional skills in the service, are at
a
disadvantage compared with their professional brethren who
have stayed at home.' They have lost patients, while their
Army experience has not been such in most cases
as
to perfect
them in the arts
of
civilian medi~ine.~ With the lawyers? the
case is evcn worse.
For
most
of
them, the law has been
a
closed book for three
or
four
or
five years, save perhaps
€or
an occasional reluctant glance into the Manual for Courts
1
Seo
HearingR
before
a
Sub-comniittec of the
Committee
on
Finance,
U.
S.
Senate,
on
H.
R.
3749
(1945)
139
(lawyers
in
the armed forces); Wicker,
Legal
&ducation
Today
and
in
the
Post-War
Era,
18
Tenn.L.Rev.
700,
701
(1945)
(law students).
2
On
thc
needs
of
veterans
of
the medical profession
for
refresher education,
see
N.
Y.
Times, Oct.
14,
1945,
p.
32.
3
If
I
may be pardoned a personal anecdote,
my
battalion aurgeon while
I
wa~
commanding a Field Artillery battalion had been
a
gynaecologist in civilian
practice.
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