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ERIC FRIESEN: Tell me, Solly, why does the law have such a bad reputation? Why do lawyers have such a bad reputation these days?

SOLLY ROBBINS: Lawyers have never, ever been the favorite of the public because they essentially are protectors of the law. Law is a discipline. People that have to pay to be disciplined resent it. That's human.

Doctors-- what's happened to that profession? Well, that profession stopped making house calls and the lawyers then started suing the doctors because they now had clients who were not friends of doctors. Now, they were in the same position that the lawyers were with the public. They were being charged for another human being helping them.

Well, in the system of jurisprudence that we have, which is a wonderful system, I defend it to my death, a person can represent themselves. And that worked great right up to about the mid '50s when we got the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Prior to that time, lawyers had a great respect in the community and in the public's eyes. And all of a sudden, they put out the Rules of Civil Procedure and criminal procedure as well. And the precept of it was that it would simplify a court procedure, and it would make it less expensive.

And I spoke right out and said it won't make it less expensive. It'll make it more expensive. The civil rules were the beginning of the trouble of lawyers. The next step that complicated the practice of law was the right to advertise. Freedom of speech.

It's all well and good to say that the public ought to know the special talents of lawyers so as to be able to choose the right kind of a lawyer. Unfortunately, freedom to publicize has been abused where people have not gotten quality representation.

And I don't mean by that that all lawyers who advertise are not good lawyers. There are some very talented specialists that advertise, but the public doesn't know from the advertisement of the talented lawyer or the mediocre lawyer. And at that point in time, all you have to do is go back to the old adage. It just takes one apple to spoil the whole bushel.

Today, the Supreme Court of the United states for the first time just within the last month made a decision, handed down a decision limiting the lawyers right to advertise in the first 30 days after an accident in Florida. And the Florida State Bar passed that prohibition.

Previous to that time in Florida, as in Minnesota and every place else, you may have a tragedy in your home and you may be besieged by many, many letters from lawyers that you don't even know seeking to have your case.

Well, who as a human being is so calloused that they would run out and hire a lawyer before they made the final funeral arrangements? At that point in time, you're not human at all. And society has to be human. We have to be sensitive to the needs of people. We should fulfill the wants of the needy, not the greedy.

Look, all I can tell you is this. If, in fact, the profession has been in low repute with the public, it's not, in my opinion, the lawyers fault as a profession. It may be the fault of certain practitioners, but that's true in every element of society.

ERIC FRIESEN: Do you remember the first job you had? You talked about working.

SOLLY ROBBINS: Yes, I was a newsboy.

ERIC FRIESEN: A newsboy?

SOLLY ROBBINS: Well, yes. We lived right over on the other side of the Robert Street Bridge in Saint Paul. And at an early age of between 10 and 11, I became a newsboy.

And it wasn't until I was around-- well, I was a newsboy in the streets for about a year. I had the corner, and you had to be pretty good with your dukes to get a good corner.

And I had what could be considered a third level corner at Fourth and Minnesota street. So I had that corner. And about a year later, they passed an ordinance that you had to be 13 years old in order to be able to be a newsboy.

But I luckily was tall for my age and passed pretty good, except for the fact that you're supposed to have a little badge. And there were several times that I was run off the street, but that the newspaper as a newsboy was a great lesson.

ERIC FRIESEN: How much money did you make at the time? Do you remember what kind of money you earned?

SOLLY ROBBINS: Well, we were poor, as I can tell you. As a matter of fact, the only time we ever had potatoes and mashed potatoes, and I still love them, were on the holidays.

In those days, you'd come home and you'd give your mother-- or at least I would always give my mother. And she would save what she could for treats and what have you, and just give it to our parents. I was lucky if I made as much as $0.50 in a day.

But on the extras were when they were in the World Series. They had a signboard down by the dispatch, and they could show it on little bulb plays and we'd get out extras. And you'd get out practically in the middle of the night and sell extra newspapers, and you'd make about close to $1.

ERIC FRIESEN: Did you shout out the headlines?

SOLLY ROBBINS: Oh, yeah, every day.

ERIC FRIESEN: Do you remember any of them, the kinds of things you would say?

SOLLY ROBBINS: Oh, you'd take the headline and you'd dramatically--

ALL: Embellish it.

SOLLY ROBBINS: Yes. In those days, it was considered to be good marketing.