Be a Jefferson Lawyer

Washington D.C. is at its most beautiful during the spring blossoming of its cherry trees. My daughter’s class needed chaperones for their D.C. trip, and I found myself drafted for a week of D.C. fun. On a sunny day we walked past trees bursting with cherry blossoms and climbed the stairs to the Jefferson Memorial. Gazing from the top, we could see the Potomac River, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and all of the blossoming cherry trees. We walked into the rotunda and looked up at the monumental bronze of Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence in his gigantic left hand. Lining the rotunda above the statue are the words, “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” It warmed the heart to see so many young people taking in the majesty of this celebration of Jefferson.

Lawyers sometimes speak about Thomas Jefferson as though he emerged fully formed into history holding the Declaration of Independence in one hand and a quill in the other. The image is understandable, but incomplete. Before Jefferson became President of the United States, Secretary of State, diplomat to France, or the principal drafter of the Declaration, he was a practicing lawyer trying to build a career in colonial Virginia.

For roughly seven years, Jefferson rode the circuit across Virginia, traveling from county to county handling ordinary legal disputes for ordinary people. He represented hundreds of clients. Debt matters. Land disputes. Contract disagreements. The sort of legal work that rarely appears in paintings or monuments. It is easy to forget that many of the men who eventually shaped the country first learned persuasion, negotiation, and practical judgment in crowded courtrooms and dusty county proceedings.

That experience appears to have mattered enormously. Jefferson’s legal practice did not simply provide income. It sharpened habits that later became essential in politics and diplomacy. Lawyers learn how to listen before speaking too quickly. They learn how to frame disagreements carefully. They learn that words matter, especially when tensions are already elevated. Jefferson carried those skills into public life.

His most famous observation about the profession still feels surprisingly modern: “A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.” Jefferson would probably be astonished to walk into many law offices today and discover shelves filled mostly with decorations while the actual research happens silently on screens. At the same time, he likely would have adapted quickly.  Jefferson loved knowledge too much to become overly sentimental about format alone.

The larger point behind the quote remains important. Good lawyers need tools, and the law requires constant study. Lawyers who stop learning eventually become dangerous to their own clients. The lawyer’s tools may change over time, but the obligation to sharpen them does not.

Jefferson also believed the essence of legal study was usefulness.  He wrote, “The study of the law is useful in a variety of points of view. It qualifies a man to be useful to himself, to his neighbors, & to the public.” That idea feels worth revisiting because professionals sometimes drift toward viewing expertise mainly as personal advancement. Jefferson appeared to see the profession somewhat differently. Legal training carried obligations outward into the community itself.

That sense of usefulness appears throughout his career. Jefferson helped draft the Virginia Constitution. He became the principal drafter of the Declaration of Independence. He later participated in the broader constitutional debates surrounding the formation of the United States and the eventual adoption of the Bill of Rights. As a diplomat in France, he helped secure support for the young republic while navigating relationships among competing European powers.

Then there was the Louisiana Purchase, one of the great negotiations in American history. Any lawyer would be proud to participate meaningfully in even one negotiation of that magnitude during an entire career. Jefferson somehow became involved in several matters that permanently reshaped the country’s structure, territory, and identity. Whatever else may be said about him, his legal and negotiating abilities were extraordinary.

Good negotiators usually understand that persuasion requires flexibility. Jefferson appeared to possess that instinct naturally, although not always consistently. Some historians have pointed out that he could move between idealism and pragmatism depending on circumstance. Lawyers probably recognize that tension immediately because legal practice itself often demands balancing principle against practical realities that are far messier than theory.

Still, Jefferson presents a difficult contradiction that should not be ignored or softened artificially. The author of the Declaration’s language about liberty owned slaves throughout his life. The contradiction has been discussed for generations because it deserves discussion. Jefferson also represented several enslaved individuals who claimed they were being wrongfully held in bondage, and somewhat remarkably for colonial Virginia, he successfully obtained freedom for at least one of them. Even that fact complicates the picture more than it resolves it.

Jefferson could also be thin-skinned and vindictive at times. Politics during the founding era was not nearly as dignified as popular memory occasionally pretends. His rivalry with Alexander Hamilton became deeply personal and both men spent years attacking each other’s vision for the country in ways that sometimes resemble modern politics more than civic mythology.

The temptation with historical figures is to move too far in one direction or the other. Either they become untouchable monuments or they become collections of failures with no redeeming accomplishments left standing. Neither approach seems especially useful. Lawyers, of all people, should probably resist oversimplified judgments because lawyers spend their careers dealing with imperfect human beings operating inside imperfect circumstances.

That does not mean excusing wrongdoing or pretending contradictions are unimportant. It means trying to evaluate historical figures honestly without flattening them into caricatures. Jefferson’s failures were real. So were his contributions. A mature assessment probably leaves room for both realities to exist at the same time.

I have occasionally wondered whether Jefferson himself would be surprised by the scale of the country that emerged from those early negotiations and constitutional arguments. Much of his professional life involved trying to build systems durable enough to survive long after the personalities involved disappeared. Lawyers do similar work more often than people realize. Contracts, constitutions, settlements, trusts, corporate structures, and statutes are all attempts to create order that outlasts the immediate dispute.

Jefferson’s legal career also serves as a reminder that ordinary practice can prepare lawyers for extraordinary responsibility later. Riding the circuit through Virginia probably did not feel historic while it was happening. Most legal work does not. Yet those years appear to have shaped Jefferson’s understanding of persuasion, conflict, governance, and human nature in ways that formal political theory alone probably could not have accomplished.

One of Jefferson’s grand negotiations created the District of Columbia itself. To implement his vision of a grand capital city on the Potomac, he compromised his aversion to Alexander Hamilton’s vision of a strong national bank. This Compromise of 1790 laid out the streets that are now lined by cherry trees and which gave my daughter and her friends such a wonderful greeting to our nation’s capital.

Being a Jefferson lawyer does not mean imitating Jefferson’s politics or overlooking his failings. It means recognizing the power of legal training when combined with intellectual curiosity, public service, negotiation skill, and a genuine belief that lawyers should be useful beyond themselves. The profession is at its best when lawyers use their abilities not only to advance private interests, but also to strengthen institutions and communities that will outlast them. Let’s all resolve to be Jefferson lawyers.

Jim Vickaryous is the managing partner of the Vickaryous Law Firm in Lake Mary and represents the 18th Circuit on The Florida Bar Board of Governors.