Chester County lawyer Samuel C. Stretton. Courtesy photo

Lawyers involved in politics have been key to the country's democratic traditions.

I am a young attorney and wish to also become very much politically involved. Are there any pitfalls from doing that as an attorney?    

Traditionally, political involvement has been really the secondary occupation of many, many attorneys over the last 300 years in the legal profession in the United States. There are wonderful stories of lawyers who were involved politically and made substantial changes.

John Adams comes to mind immediately. He had an excellent law practice in Boston prior to the Revolutionary War, but was also deeply involved in the revolutionary political activity and ultimately was elected to the Continental Congress starting his political career, which ended up as the second president. Alexander Hamilton, the first chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar, one of the most respected lawyers in early colonial times in Philadelphia, was also heavily involved in political activity and, in fact, went to New York to represent the publisher there who was charged with defamation of the New York governor. Abraham Lincoln was the classic example of an attorney who was deeply involved in politics. He was initially elected as an assemblyman in Illinois and later speaker of the House. His legal career was intertwined with his political involvement resulting in his election to the presidency in 1860. In the 19th and early 20th century, most state senates, state houses, and U.S. Congress members were oftentimes populated primarily by attorneys. Politics and law were an accepted occupation and always have been. Daniel Webster is another classic example.