The Courage to Be Different
Gordon Henderson is one of my heroes of the legal world. Kindly and humble, he was also fiercely brilliant and a force of nature.
He was well known for opening his arguments thus, “Your Honour, I am well aware that the law is against our position. Today we are going to change that.” You can bet that he had the full attention of the judge.
What he was saying, in effect, was that the established law was not fair in the specific circumstances of the case before the court. He was asking the court to distinguish, or even bolder, to throw out the established case law (stare decisis) and write new law. For a lawyer, that’s pretty courageous.
Now, if you know anything about the common law, you know that its reliability is in its following of precedent. But you will also know that the power of the common law is its ability to evolve to meet the needs of new circumstances. One of my other heroes, Lord Diplock, put it like this, “The common law evolves not merely by breeding new principles but also, when they are fully grown, by burying their ancestors.”
The principle here is that yesterday’s truisms and rules often need to change. The problem is that not everyone has the courage to say so.
The truly influential communicator has the courage and principles to say what needs to be spoken. It may not butter his bread, it may not be well received, but it needs to be said.
Gordon Henderson and Lord Diplock were often criticized for shaking up the conventional, comfortable doctrines of the day, but in hindsight they are seen as pioneers. They worked, respectfully, within their professional worlds, but they spoke with courage, intelligence and conviction.
And you?
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