Mr. Tutt

(Originally published in the Wisconsin Lawyer magazine, but still a four-bit book [free, actually]) Arthur Train, Mr. Tutt’s Case Book (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944). “It is not enough for a lawyer to know either the law or the judge, or even both. To succeed in his profession he must, above all else, know his fellow man.” -- From “The Liberty of the Jail.” Something compelled me to pull the book from the free-books bin outside the local half-price bookstore. It couldn’t have been the faded olive-green cover with illegible flecks of gold gilt lettering, or the pile of musty books around it. But something did. When I opened it, a vaguely sophisticated odor of pipe tobacco drifted out, creating a passing mental image of a smoking jacket in a darkly paneled home library, in which rows of books stood smartly at the edge of the yellow reading light, waiting to share old confidences and reflections. The pages, reflecting every one of their 60-some years, were yellowed and stiff. But I recognized the title on the flyleaf, and found myself drawn into Mt. Tutt’s Case Book, a collection of 26 stories about the practice of law in the 1920s and -30s, the way it was – or ideally would have been – practiced. I had a passing acquaintance with the firm of Tutt & Tutt, having come across it in a short story collection years ago. That familiarity inspired to take the book home and further investigate. I soon came to know and appreciate Ephriam Tutt, this tall, urbane, older, gentleman attorney equally at home in the courtroom, the board room, and the barroom, with his (even then) old-fashioned stovepipe hat and penchant for smelly cigars. To some extent he seemed an American Horace Rumpole,1committed to the pursuit of justice, which usually involves defending the “little guy” against moneyed interests and their pompous advocates. Like Rumpole, Mr. Tutt (as he is invariably called by everyone) is given to spouting poetry whenever it strikes him as apropos of a particular situation. Their primary difference is that Mr. Tutt possesses the wealth and sophistication that Rumpole seems to simultaneously desire and disparage. The other half of Tutt & Tutt is the younger and stouter Samuel Tutt (no relation to Ephriam and never referred to as “Mr.”) who does the legal grunt work and trial preparation. The junior Tutt tends to argue purely on the side of the controlling law, reasoning that because “the law is wise, based on generations of experience,” it ought to be presumed that the legal answer is the end of the question. Mr. Tutt is more drawn to the equitable side of the law; “In a word,” the author writes, “he applied to any given situation the law as it ought to be and not the law as it was.” This interplay between Mr. Tutt and Tutt provides much of the intellectual savor of the book, resulting, as the author deftly puts it, in Mr. Tutt “always tilting like Don Quixote at some imaginary windmill, dragging a very unwilling Sancho Panza after him, in the form of his reluctant partner.” Over the years each has come to appreciate and rely on the other, and the fact that the firm prospers is a testament to the ability of each partner to rise above his individual prejudices and to find an answer that satisfies both perspectives. The stories are well-crafted, fun, and elegant, most involving a series of interesting and all-to-human recurring regulars, with the occasional appearance of a transient and evil villain. The plots seldom reach beyond the realm of credulity, invariably reaching a plausible, if sometimes a bit forced, ending in which right is done after all. Train, in his nonliterary hours, served as Assistant District Attorney of New York County and Special Deputy Attorney General of New York State, and his stories reflect his experiences and his legal background. Each story is followed by a sort of brief, in which another attorney traces the legal issues raised in the story, including the then-current authority usually supporting – but occasionally refuting – the outcome of the story. These annotations often seem so quaint and Olympian, reflecting a long-gone era when the practice of law was seriously considered a profession and an art, when rights and justice arguably mattered more than money, and when the sums in dispute were incredibly paltry by modern standards. The stories are not perfect, however. For one thing, they sometimes rely on period references that seldom make sense to modern readers. More disturbing, though, are occasional lapses into casually racist comments, usually in the form of references to biases and phrases that seem to have been a part of the lingua franca of the day. A similarly subtle sexism also appears, in that, though there are plenty of old ladies and damsels in distress, there are almost no female authority figures. The one exception might be the firm’s “chief clerk” and moral compass, Miss Minerva Wiggins, who does have a law degree. But she never appears in court, and Train goes out of his way describe her as “a maiden lady of forty years.” Disappointing though such unconscious flaws can be, it might be said that they also impart value to the stories, suggesting that even the gilded age of the practice of law had its imperfections, and reminding us that not everything lost was worth keeping. Mt. Tutt’s Casebook is a delight, and one of several collections of stories about Tutt & Tutt that appeared in the first half of the 20th Century. You would do well to pick one up – if you can find it.