Yet not one client in a thousand could give
an explanation of them other than, "My lawyer told me to sign it, so I
did."
Whenever anyone gets anxious to understand a pleading, there are so
many volumes about the subject and so many bookcases of decisions they
would furnish a house. All this may appear flippant, but the subject
is so absurd, abstruse, and abnormal to a man of business, that it is
almost impossible to make it understandable. A partial list of
authorities on the subject sounds like a chapter from _Alice in
Wonderland_: Pepper on Pleading; Perry on Pleading; Pollock on
Pleading; Pound on Pleading; Puterbaugh on Pleading; Phillips on
Pleading; Pomeroy on Pleading. The number of court decisions in which
this branch of the proceeding has been reverently and gravely dealt
with reads like a metaphysical discussion in the dark ages. The names
formerly used were superb. Complaint, demurrer, confession and
avoidance, traverse, replication, dilatory pleas, peremptory pleas,
rejoinder, rebutter, and sur-rebutter.
On the other hand the clear, concise technical statement of a case is
not a matter to be laughed at; no clear thinking is possible without
it. No plain understanding of what the drama is about, nor what the
issues of the battle are, can be grasped.
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