The promise of power : the emergence of the legal profession in Massachusetts, 1760-1840

The rise of the legal profession in Massachusetts from obscurity and insignificance in the eighteenth century to its central role of power and influence in the nineteenth century would appear to be the stuff of a compelling story. The source materials are relatively rich for legal history, and Gerard W. Gawalt has mined them diligently. But the result is flat and dull, and ultimately a disservice to its subject. In one sense, what Gawalt does, he does quite well. Every twist and turn of the Massachusetts lawyer's rise to power between 1760 and 1840 has been charted in painstaking detail. And occasionally Gawalt's discussion leads to a reformulation of the standard wisdom on his subject. His treatment of the Jacksonian "assault" on professionalism in the 1830's is illuminating-although he does overstate the standing of university legal education in the minds of most lawyers of the time. Less illuminating perhaps, but still informative, is Gawalt's discussion of a number of other topics-the distance between the eighteenth-century bench and bar, the lawyer's use of the Revolution to enhance his professional standing, and the labors of early bar associations, to name but a few. Indeed, the steady stream of information soon wears the reader down, for the author has chosen not to enliven his narrative with the human dimension of the Massachusetts lawyers, even though their papers and writings often are quite revealing in this regard. Gawalt's lawyers are one-dimensional power-aggrandizers, period. Moreover, while Gawalt is always clear and precise, he seems somewhat deaf to the rhythms of the written word. Still, in a sense, Gawalt's book is successful. It ought to have a long and honored life in the footnotes of authors who want to demonstrate that they have "checked out" the situation in Massachusetts between 1760 and 1840. But the book simply does not have the power to inspire further inquiry and argument about its subject. Beyond its reviewers, the book will not be read, but rather will sit in the stacks of academic libraries, to be pulled down from the shelf occasionally and consulted via its index on specific points. There is no shame in that. It is the fate of most historical monographs. But Gawalt's subject deserved something better.