Abraham Lincoln often gets credit for the line, but in 1814 clergyman Henry Kett’s collection of proverbs in “The Flowers of Wit” included “I hesitate not to pronounce that every man who is his own lawyer has a fool for client.”
More than two centuries later, it’s still true. But don’t tell Stephen DiCarmine, former executive director of the now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf. He doesn’t believe it. Recently, he appeared before Robert Stolz, an acting justice for the New York County Supreme Court, and explained that he wants to fire his attorney and represent himself.
