Learning the law in his father's firm under his guidance
Thurmond studied and practiced law through the assistance of his father. He defended cases on his father's behalf before he even passed the bar exam.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Strom Thurmond, July 20, 1978. Interview A-0334. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Good. Can you describe when you were studying for law. You didn't go to
law school did you?
- STROM THURMOND:
-
No, I studied under my father.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
How did you do that, he would just tell you what to read?
- STROM THURMOND:
-
Well the Supreme Court proscribed; the other courts would have
to read them. So I got those books, my father had most of 'em, so I got
those books and read 'em. Then, if I came across something that I didn't
quickly understand, instead of having to go and look it up and wasting
time, I'd just ask him and he could answer like that.
(snaps his fingers)
See, I had a three year law course in one year.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
But you read three years . . .
- STROM THURMOND:
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Well, I'd hang around the court room a lot. And I had
been before I took the bar; I furnished my own
office as Superintendent of Education. I moved down next to his law
office, right next door to before I was admitted to the bar. In fact I
tried three cases before I was admitted to the bar.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
You could do that?
- STROM THURMOND:
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Well, I had to get permission.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
From the judge.
- STROM THURMOND:
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Yeah. He had a heart attack and couldn't argue a case in the Supreme
Court. And Chief Justice Blease gave him permission for me to argue the
case for him. It was a case about illegitimates, with so, I won the
case.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
You won the case?
- STROM THURMOND:
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Yeah. That was before I was admitted to the bar. Let's see, I was
admitted in 1930, so this must have been about 1929 I guess.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
How was that test administered, to the bar?
- STROM THURMOND:
-
Well you stand three days. You have three different
examiners;each one examines you for a day on certain subjects
and the other ones on other subjects.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Was this an oral exam?
- STROM THURMOND:
-
No, it was written. And the next case was in the Surrogate Court, that's
the highest trial court in the common. A man was killed at a railroad
crossing, pressed a charge. My father had the case, and he had another
heart attack and couldn't try that. So I tried that particular one too.
I had learned to try cases pretty well from just watching him try cases,
see, over the years.
In the third case; I started at the Supreme Court and came on
down. The third case was in Greenville; the man was charged
with having a hog with cholera; in the Magistrate's Court. So
I went up to defend him, didn't charge him anything;he was
from Edgefield and a friend of mine. Well he didn't
know if he had cholera, but he did have cholera, so the veterinarian
said.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Oh, who had this disease.
- STROM THURMOND:
-
A fellow Wood was charged with selling hogs with cholera. That's against
the law you see. Except what the law says, who
knowingly does. Well, he said he didn't know and argued before the
jury. I remember Dr. Barnett who was the father of some Barnett boys in
Greenville, a good friend of mine now, was a veterinarian. He testified
that they had cholera. And I remember I had taught agriculture and I
knew something about those things. And I had good many bulletins from
Clemson on various subjects. I asked him if he was familiar with a
certain man who taught at Clemson and who was an expert on this subject.
He said, yeah. I said, would you mind taking this bulletin here and read
what it says about hog cholera. And I had marked the portions and its
says the only way you can definitely if a hog has
cholera; 'course there are other symptoms; the only
way you can definitely tell for sure, is to make a post mortem. So I had
him read that to the jury. And then I said, now did you make a post
mortem. He said, No. I said, well then you couldn't definitely tell
then. At any rate, we cleared the man.