It’s Nice to be Nice

Brother Martin, long time director of the Carver Center in New Orleans, would walk around saying, "It's nice to be nice" over and over again to the kids. I have taken this same phrase and each year teach it to a new group of little league basketball players lucky enough to be chosen for my team J. I think that I need to start doing the same thing with lawyers from two of the three largest cities that are within three hours of Texarkana. Niceness and professional courtesy go a long way in the legal field, but lawyers from the two large cities (and not the closest one to Texarkana out of the three) seem to have forgotten that it is nice to be nice. Fortunately they also forget to take their big city attitude out of letters in small town cases, and although judges might be impressed with the attorney's knowledge of the rules and rudeness in the big city, judges outside of the big city fortunately do not share the same view. That is another reason that these lawyers should learn that it is nice to be nice – I am more worried about my letters being read by a judge than an attorney, and I write my letters accordingly. Over the past few days our office has received a few that we cannot wait to show a judge!