An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln

Steiner describes Lincoln's legal education, the economics of the law office, and the changes in the practice of law that Lincoln himself experienced as the nation became an industrial, capitalist society. Abraham Lincoln embraced a professional ideal which cast the lawyer as a guardian of order and, adopting a service mentality, represented clients to the best of his ability regardless of his own beliefs about the justice or morality of their claims.