Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

"Let us hear what it is," said the court.

Sir William had completely checkmated his opponent! A statutory requisition had not been complied with; and in less than ten minutes' time the enemy were all prostrate – their expensive and elaborate proceedings all defeated – and that, too, permanently, unless on acceding to the terms which Sir William Follett dictated to them, and which, it need hardly be observed, were somewhat advantageous to his own client!

"Really this is too bad, Follett," might have been heard whispered by his opponent, as the next case was called in.

"Not at all – why didn't you let it stand over as I asked you?"

"Oh – you would have done just the same then as you have now."

"I don't know that," replied Sir William Follett with a significant smile. "But why won't your people be more careful?" And then turning to his junior, said – "Now for the Privy Council!" And all this with such provoking, easy, smiling nonchalance !

Heaven forbid that any thing here said should favour the attempt to defeat justice by technical objections; but there is, at the same time, much vulgar error on that subject, grounded on reasons which would tend to subvert all rules of law and legal procedure whatever. In the case above mentioned, the legislature had thought fit to impose on applicants for redress under the statute in question, a duty, which through haste or negligence had been overlooked, and which Sir William Follett's clients had a perfect right to take advantage of, as soon as his acuteness had detected it. To return, however. No member of the bar, let his experience and skill have been what they might, was ever opposed to Sir William Follett without feeling, as has been already intimated, the necessity of the greatest possible vigilance and research to encounter his boundless resources; his dangerous subtlety and acuteness in detecting flaws, and raising objections; his matchless art in concealing defects in his own case; and building up, with easy grace, a superstructure equally unsubstantial and imposing, and defeating all attempts to assail or overthrow it. Even very strong heads would be often at fault, conscious that they were the victim of some subtle fallacy, which yet they could not then and there detect and expose; and by their hazy and inconsistent efforts to do so, only supplied additional materials for the use of their astute and skilful enemy, to whom nothing ever seemed to come amiss; who converted every thing into ingredients of success; whom scarce any surprise or mischance could defeat or overthrow. A very short time before he withdrew from practice, he was engaged at Liverpool, whither he had gone upon a special retainer, in a very intricate and important ejectment case.

Unexpectedly he discovered, when about half-way through the case, that his client (the plaintiff) had omitted to serve a notice upon the defendant's attorney to produce a certain critical document, at the contents of which it was necessary to get, in order to make out the plaintiff's case. The objection was promptly taken by his opponent – and to the dismay of Sir William's clients. Not so with him, however.

"You have not given a notice to produce them, eh?" he calmly whispered to his client, and was answered with a disturbed air in the negative; and all the court saw that Sir William was in the very jaws of a non-suit.

"You ought to have done so, but it does not much signify," said he, very quietly – "what's the name of the defendant's attorney?" and, on being told it, that gentleman, doubtless chuckling with delight in his anticipated triumph, was somewhat astounded by being suddenly called as a witness by Sir William Follett; who coolly asked him to produce the document in question – and on his refusal, with one or two artful questions, which completely concealed his real object, elicited the fact that he had no such document, had searched every where for it, both in his own office, and among his clients' papers, and elsewhere, but in vain.

"Now, then, my lord," said Sir William Follett, "I am entitled to give secondary evidence of its contents!"

The Judge assented.

Sir William extracted from his own witness all that was necessary – and out of the nettle danger plucking the flower safety , won the verdict. Every one, however, who has had opportunities of observing, can give many instances of Sir William Follett's extraordinary tact and readiness in encountering unexpected difficulty, and defeating an opponent by interposing successive unthought-of obstacles. In the most desperate emergencies, when the full tide of success was arrested by some totally unlooked-for impediment, Sir William Follett's vast practical knowledge, quickness of perception, unerring sagacity, and immoveable self-possession, enabled him, without any apparent effort or uneasiness, to remove that impediment almost as soon as it was discovered, and conduct his case to a triumphant issue. He was, indeed, the very perfection of a practical lawyer. Whatever he did, he did as well as even his most exacting client could have wished – he won the battle, won it with little apparent effort, and won it with grace and dignity of demeanour. A gentleman felt proud of being represented by such an advocate – who never descended into any thing approaching even the confines of vulgarity, coarseness, or personality – who lent even to the flimsiest case a semblance of substance and strength – whose consummate and watchful adroitness placed weak places quite out of the sight and reach of the shrewdest opponent, and never perilled a good case by a single act of incaution, negligence, rashness, or supererogation. When necessary, he would prove a case barely up to the point which would suffice to secure a decision in his favour, and then leave it – equally before the court, and a jury – the result afterwards showing with what consummate judgment he had acted in running the risk – the latent difficulties to have been afterwards encountered which he had avoided, the collateral interests which he had shielded from danger. He possessed that sort of intuitive sagacity which enabled him to see safety at the first instant of its existence – to be confident of having the judgment of the court, or the verdict of the jury, when others deeply interested and concerned in the cause imagined that they were making no way whatever. "Now, I've knocked him," his opponent, "down" – he would say at such a moment to his junior – "don't let him get up again! I must go off to the House of Lords – and will come back if you want me! But mind, if he attempt to do so or so – to put in such and such a paper, on no account allow it; send for me, and fight till I come." He possessed, to an extraordinary degree, the power of rapidly transferring his undivided and undisturbed attention to every thing, great and small, which could be brought before it. A single glance of his eye penetrated the most obscure and perplexing parts of a case – a touch of his master-hand disentangled apparently inextricable complexities. He could apply, with beautiful promptitude and precision, some maxim or principle which had not occurred to those who had devoted long and anxious attention to the case, and which at once dissolved the difficulty. Whether acting on the offensive or defensive, he was equally characterised by the great qualities essential to successful advocacy; but perhaps, when acting on the offensive, he displayed more formidable powers. He tripped up the heels of the most wary and experienced antagonists, just when they imagined themselves in the very act of throwing him. It was almost useless to quote a " case " against him. Though the party doing so deemed it precisely in point in his favour, and on that ground was stopped by the court from proceeding further, Sir William Follett would ask for the case; and rising up, after a momentary glance at it, show that it was perfectly distinguishable from that before the court, and, in a few minutes' time, would be interrupted by the court, with – "We think, Mr – , that you had better resume your argument!" If, on such occasions, Sir William's opponent were not a ready and dextrous legal logician, his client would wish that he had secured Sir William Follett. His power of drawing distinctions and detecting analogies – and that, too, on the spur of the moment – was almost unequalled. It was in vain for an opponent to feel that the suggested distinction was without a difference – he could not prove it to be so – he could not demonstrate the fallacy which had been imposed on even a strong court by that exquisite astuteness which, however sinister, was carried off by a charming air of frankness and confidence in the validity of the distinction. On such an occasion, directly the cause was over he would turn round and say, laughingly, to his discomfited opponent, "You haven't your wits about you this morning – why didn't you quote such and such case?" or "say so and so?" Such things were never said in an unpleasant manner – never truculently – never triumphantly – but simply with a good-humoured, cheerful air of badinage , which, so far from irritating you, took off the edge of vexation, and set you almost laughing at yourself for having suffered yourself to be so completely circumvented.