Irving Younger’s Ten Commandments

Recently I was delighted to discover that Irving Younger’s legendary lecture, The Ten Commandments of Cross Examination, is available on YouTube, courtesy of the University of California Hastings College of the Law. Here is a link to it. One of the all-time great lectures, it never gets old. For 43 minutes, Professor Younger fills the screen with vitality, intelligence, charisma, style, and humor. His performance is a master class in public speaking and it is also just plain fun to watch.

Tragically, Younger died of pancreatic cancer 30 years ago at age 55. But in the time he had, he lived life to the fullest. Before turning 40, he worked as an attorney in private practice in Manhattan, served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, taught law at NYU, and later was elected New York civil court judge. After five years on the bench, he found his way back to academia, teaching at Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, and the University of Minnesota. Besides many articles for the popular press, he wrote 35 law review articles and 14 books and monographs. By the late 1970s he was America’s most renowned public speaker on legal topics, giving speeches and lectures from one end of the country to the other. Perhaps most remarkable of all, he interrupted his academic career in the early 1980s to spend 3 years as a partner at Williams & Connolly, during which time he represented the Washington Post in the famous $50 million libel case brought against the paper by the president of Mobil Oil.

It would take most people 100 years to build a career like that, but Younger did it in 30. Through it all, he remained a New Yorker to the bone. He once quipped, “Looking at trees is nice and bucolic, but after a while you say, ‘Damn the trees, show me an alley.’”

The best introduction to his work is found in The Irving Younger Collection: Wisdom & Wit from the Master of Trial Advocacy, which is an absolute pleasure to read. It includes not only Younger’s sage and gripping advice on trial advocacy topics like hearsay, expert witnesses, and jury selection, but also his fascinating examination of major cases such as Erie Railroad v. Tompkins and the Alger Hiss perjury trial. In introductions to each chapter, Professor Stephen Easton (who teaches CLE courses based on Younger’s lectures) updates the material by explaining changes in the law since Professor Younger’s death. The book is a real treat. I also highly recommend a great article that my co-blogger Steven Lubet wrote with Sara Whitaker called Clarence Darrow, Neuroscientist: What Trial Lawyers Can Learn From Decision Science (36 Am. J. Trial Advoc. 61 (2012)), which shows how the lessons of decision science—a field pioneered by the cognitive psychologists Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky—largely confirm the wisdom of Younger’s ten commandments of cross examination.

In his foreword to the Irving Younger Collection, Professor Easton observes that Irving Younger “was the closest thing to a rock star our profession has ever seen.” He is exactly right, and I am very glad there is no sign Professor Younger’s star will dim anytime soon.

Comments

[Enrique Guerra Pujol (priorprobability.com)]

Thanks for sharing this link. I still remember seeing a video recording (VHS) of one Younger’s talks during my second summer of law school. It is still the single-best lecture on trial law I have ever seen. 🙃

[Anthony Gaughan]

It's my pleasure, Enrique. Irving Younger was the best.

[Doug Richmond]

Younger's Ten Commandments have actually come under criticism from some experienced trial lawyers. See, e.g., Patrick Malone, Burying the Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination, Litigation, Fall 2016.

[Anthony Gaughan]

You are absolutely right, Doug, and thanks for the reference to the excellent Patrick Malone article. I have always loved the movie "My Cousin Vinny" so it's quite fun to see how Vinny's courtroom strategy violated Professor Younger's Ten Commandments! It would have been a tragedy if Vinny had prematurely cut off the Grits line of questioning. For anyone who is interested, here's the SSRN link to the Malone article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2871375.

There is no doubt that many highly skilled trial attorneys do not always follow the Younger approach. Another prominent example is the defense attorney Roy Black, who Malone quotes from in his article. Black wrote a critique called, "Irving Younger's Ungodly Ten Commandments," available here https://www.royblack.com/blog/irving-youngers-ungodly-ten-commandments/. It's a fun and interesting read, just like the Patrick Malone article.

But what I find so striking is that all of these years later, Younger's Ten Commandments remain so relevant and influential that prominent trial attorneys like Malone and Black still reckon with Younger. The bottom line is Malone and Black are extremely experienced attorneys who know the Younger Commandments so well they are uniquely qualified to break them when necessary.

In any case, thanks again for the cite to Patrick Malone's great article, Doug.

[Steve L.]

I had the privilege of seeing Younger's Ten Commandments lecture in person, at the NITA national session in 1974 (the one and only time it was held in Reno). He also gave a series of evidence lectures -- I think there were ten, but it may have been fewer -- from which I used my notes for at least another decade.

It may be of current interest that Younger was one of the assistant U.S. attorneys in one of the prosecutions of Roy Cohn in the 1960s. Younger later came to believe that the case was a vendetta against Cohn due to Robert Kennedy's hostility (held over from the McCarthy days), and he wrote an article about it for Commentary in 1976.

[Anthony Gaughan]

I am envious, Steve! I would love to have seen an Irving Younger lecture (on any topic) in person.

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Enviconmental Justice]

"The Cadillac of..." "The Ten Commandments." Obsolete, very old school. With our Dear Leader since 01-20-17, 12:001 pm EDT, it's now the Seven Commandments, with the emphasis on the Second One, the Right to bare arm.

[anymouse]

Hey Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Enviconmental Justice, too bad it wasn't Irving Younger's "Ten Commandments of Being Funny."

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Enviconmental Justice]

anymouse,

You have that right. Humor in the courtroom is excellent advocacy. Make the Judge or Jury laugh...tell a good story.

[anon]

Sy, Carswell, Deep State, Athlete, Pruitt, et al.

Funny? anymouse: hope you were being facetious!

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Enviconmental Justice]

anon at 4:56

Like Kerry forgot Poland, you are a bit off. I am an Athletic Gun Supporter, not Athlete. Thanks.