Today, students participated in what is always one of the highlights of the year: Mr. Jim Bannister of the Bannister, Wyatt & Stalvey law firm discusses with students the Tom Robinson trial from the perspective of a trained and experienced criminal defense lawyer who has experience representing individuals facing a wide variety of charges. He leads students through an examination of the case to see where Atticus could have done a better job.
Most students, after the presentation, have a new understanding of Atticus’s performance as a criminal defense lawyer.
A casual reading from a non-trained eye leaves the impression that Atticus did a fine job of representing Tom; after the session with Mr. Bannister, students see that Atticus, while he had a good heart and did the best he could, was more of a family law attorney (after all, Miss Maudie brags that Atticus can make a will that stands up to any legal challenge), he was certainly not a criminal lawyer. (Recall, too, that in the opening pages we read that Atticus’s first two clients were the last two executed in Maycomb, and that this was the cause of his “profound distaste” for criminal law.)
