A very early example of a «legal eagle» in the United States appears Henry Gaston, The Little Lawyer; or The Farmers». Mechanics, miners, workers and businessmen Consultants and legal aids and legal advisers (1880): BIANCA AND ALBERTO: Yes, it is certain that it can be / That he will soon earn his fees. / For a legal beagle, it is the legal eagle. BIANCA AND ALBERTO: [sung] We`d better trust the legal eagle. Wentworth & Flexner places both terms in the subcategory «Intentional and jive rhyme terms» of «Rhymed terms and rhymed slang» – and that certainly sounds reasonable. But the dictionary does not comment on whether «legal beagle» comes from «legal eagle». Legal eagles of the European peninsula: German: rechtsadler; Italian legal aquila; French legal eagle; This glare on Wall Street probably comes from a large brass plaque with the engraving E. Newton Cutler, deputy vice president of the National City Bank, and around the corner the law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland & Kiendl (advt.) is now calling on all other law firms to comply with their four-person representation `37, namely Charlie Pierce, Lang Van Norden, their secretary, and from July 1, none other than the famous corporate lawyer Jack Irwin. 3.
Did another famous detective Beagle or Hound inspire the currency of the legal beagle? A golden eagle, the guardian of the Ripperda family`s coat of arms, climbed the central arch. As the quote suggests, an eagle was a $10 gold coin and a double eagle was a $20 gold coin. The «legal» modifier in front of each name simply indicates that government specifications required the weight of each part to meet the legal tender specification. The «legal eagle» here is therefore not a lawyer or even a human being. Houston continues to be a legal eagle with Sullivan and Cromwell and a growing advocate of the «ultimate result of human wisdom that works on human experience for the benefit of the public» (Samuel Johnson). Google`s Ngram graph for «legal beagle» (blue line) versus «legal eagle» (red line) for the period 1920-2005 looks like this: «legal eagle» and «legal beagle» appear to be products of what Wentworth & Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang (1960) calls «intentional rhyme and jive.» Now Electric Traction Hole-In-One Club, has a «legal eagle» A. L. Vencill from the legal department of the Union Switch and Signal Company, which was published on the 19th. In June 1928, he negotiated a one-shot hole at the Edge-wood Country Club in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Nevertheless, Harbach & Hammerstein`s Wildflower 1923 seems to have used both «legal eagle» and «legal beagle» in its texts and deserves (in my opinion) to be recognized as a fundamental source for both terms. Newspapers across Australia have repeated the term «legal eagle» in relation to this musical for the next three years. There is obviously a slightly older reference to Wildflower and Gaston La Roche`s character, «the legal eagle,» in the Altoona [Pennsylvania] Tribune (October 27, 1923), but I don`t have a subscription to Newspapers.com where to find the example. Since that episode [about a doctor who pointed out many flaws in Queen`s descriptions of medical practice in a detective novel], Dannay and Lee have made a habit of checking medical details with their GP before publication. They also hire a lawyer to put them in order on legal matters; They once had their legal eagle that fought continuously for two days and two nights, trying to get out of a problem with a complicated willpower. The above examples suggest that the «legal eagle» was ubiquitous in the United States. Slang at a time (1944) when the «legal beagle» had just come out of the door – at least as a popular expression. But «legal eagle» and «legal beagle» appear at least in some versions of the lyrics of Wildflower, a musical that enjoyed considerable success in the United States and abroad after its debut in 1923. In Wildflower, the character of Gaston La Roche (or Larotta) presents himself as both a brilliant lawyer (a «legal eagle») and an intelligent detective (a «legal beagle»). Tom Leidy has been appointed as an attorney with Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he practices law.
Dwight Parsons, a legal eagle from Akron, Ohio, attended the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. He was a good judge of men, this major who was confronted with an eagle`s face; He knew that the slightest move with hostile intentions would mean a smoking gun. The Eagles fall into two broad categories: First, those who love the language wish they could have a more respectable way of making a living from it, and who may have done just that, that they weren`t surprised by the easy win you can quickly get by taking a training contract with Allen & Overy. It`s like a debilitating drug. They continue to pressure you with more things, on one condition: you limit your lexical playground to legal documents. It`s a limitation, but like all limitations, a very great artist can be motivated and juiced. Legal eagle N. An extremely competent, dedicated or cunning lawyer. The term «legal eagle» also appears in the December 2, 1940 and May 20, 1941 issues of Princeton Alumni Weekly. A bookstore advertisement in the Michigan Raw Review (1941) offers this temptation: the term «legal beagle» also appears in the November 1, 1946 issue of Princeton Alumni Weekly, while «legal eagle» appears twice in the same general period – in the February 14, 1947 issue and the May 16, 1947 issue.
A first striking case of the «legal eagle» appears in a review of a piece of American music called Wildflower in the Sydney [New South Wales] Morning Herald (December 1, 1924): However, the most fascinating case of the «legal beagle» is the one involving Perry Mason, the mysterious defender of Gardner`s many novels. The man and the phrase appear several times in the Issue of Life magazine of 19. The Case of the Crooked Candle: Walking on the ceiling with suction cups on her shoes in January 1948, is the circus specialty of Peerless Pauline, the woman upside down (Eve Arden) in At the Circus. Their other specialty is to hide the $10,000 that a gang of crooks stole from the circus owner. Groucho, when J. Cheever Loophole, «the legal eagle», comes to recover the money. Oh, I doubt it`s that complicated, but, as you suggest, just a pretty obvious juxtaposition of rhymed words. I think the term is used more good-natured than hostile. It`s certainly not an expression you would use to show your reverence in the presence of a burst of case law, but a lawyer called a «right-wing beagle» wouldn`t be offended either. (By the way, «legal eagle» is by far the least used of the two.) At least for the world in prison, we believe we can take three reasons for synonyms: first, a fundamental human joy in puns that produces slang as rhymed as the legal eagle or legal beagle; secondly, the large number of names that already exist in the American language, from which come, for example, black names; and finally, those arising from the particular problems of daily life in prison. The name emerged as a well-intentioned but still weakly pejorative way of addressing the legal staff used by junior salesmen in the sincere but false belief that this would avert, not reinforce, the resentment the ministry has for them.
Especially when it was pronounced by a newly migrated structurer who worked a few days ago, felt the dawn, saw the sunset shine, loved and was himself a beloved member of the legal team. [1] This is the difficult situation in which PERRY MASON suddenly finds himself. But this is the beginning! Events rush like crazy.