Not a great fan of either profession, but I hate generalizations more. Here are some examples:
Mary Robinson (lawyer and teacher)
Robert Kennedy (Lawyer)
Mahatma Gandhi (Lawyer)
Abraham Lincoln (Lawyer)
Barak Obama (Lawyer)
Cicero (lawyer)
(sorry for the US bias - that's Google for you!)
You will get good leaders ,when you stop banks controlling givernments , and allowing them to purchase votes for cash ,through running mad deficits and kicking the debt down the road to screw future generations. It doesn't matter which profession they come from ,as long as they are , thinkers and pragmatic .
Padraig PearseOriginally Posted by Venceremos
Wolfe Tone
Robert Emmett
Great point, tried to 'like'.
Perhaps, if it were accurate, but of course it is not. A lawyer's training is to analyse a problem and manufacture a solution, whether that is a defence for their client in litigation, or whether that is how to overcome an obstacle within the law, i.e. advising on a restructuring programme. I've always been slightly perplexed by the hatred of lawyers around here. I mean, apart from conveyancing you are quite entitled to carry out all your legal work by yourself. Assuming it is so simple and straightforward why not do so?
Hatred is not the point. Lawyering is a job focussed on interpreting current conditions to favour the client's situation. There's not much visioning or strategy involved beyond growing the business. Politicians should be able to envision a different world based on more than current legislation and business rules.
Nobody has any problem with lawyers becoming politicians, we are just questioning why it almost seems to be a pre-requisite when the overlap is superficial at best.
Not too sure that these were politicians?
Jack Lynch was a Barrister, as was Liam Cosgrave. Lynch played a stormer, to his credit, during the Arms Trial and Cosgrave was more in an Enda Kenny form of leader, in that he tried to have talented people around him and was more chairman than leader. Given the records of our last two Taoiseagh, they would both be considered successful leaders.
I would say, though, that Cosgrave crossing the dail to vote against, and defeat, his own Government over a contraception bill, after the Supreme Court had recently declared banning married couples from obtaining contraceptives was unconstitutional, was an extraordinary example of putting personal considerations, (he was a right wing Catholic) over the interests of the Country.
And so you still won't answer my question.
I give up.
