Lawyer Antanas Klementas: legal practice at Raseiniai land and castle courts

The article analyses Antanas Klementas’ legal practice at Raseiniai land and castle courts. This figure is known in historiography for his literary efforts. The lawyer’s biographical facts can be determined by a newly discovered source: the speeches delivered by Antanas Klementas at court (over a hundred documents, nearly seven hundred pages of texts). The research was aimed at identifying the instances when Antanas Klementas was representing clients in proceedings in 1783–1792 at Raseiniai land and castle courts, analysing his speeches at court, assessing them in terms of science of rhetoric, also elucidating his view of law and its application. The research has enabled drawing the following conclusions. On arriving to Raseiniai in 1777, Antanas Klementas must have studied law in the clerical office of Raseiniai land court, likely supervised by the then reagent Viktoras Jarudas. As early as from 1780 Antanas Klementas is referred to as the lawyer (advocate), but the earliest data of him representing clients at court are from 1783. He practiced law at Raseiniai land and castle courts until 1792. Antanas Klementas would appear in various cases, mostly involving debts, also runaway peasants, expropriated holdings, violent offences (battery and homicide), inheritance, and title to real estate. He represented Juozapas Pliateris, Viktoras Jarudas, also the Bilevičiai, Gruževskiai, Poniatovskiai, Juražicai and other families at court on a continual basis. Trying to prove that his statements were true, and to convince the court, Antanas Klementas used a range of rhetoric and psychological measures, would exaggerate the harm incurred by the party he represented, would present his requests as consistent with law, would attempt to create a negative image of the adversary and its actions, and would ingratiate with the court. High expressionism of Antanas Klementas was achieved by the use of tropes and rhetoric figures (synonyms, metaphors, irony). The nature of the lawyer’s work determined an ambiguous relation of Antanas Klementas with the law: on the one hand, he claimed that laws must be observed, but on the other hand, he often insisted on taking into account the factors other than lawfulness, e.g. circumstances of the matter, justice or a custom (he probably used the latter term when relying on the established judicial practice). Antanas Klementas perceived the laws applicable to Poland and Lithuania and included in Volumina Legum collections as common law. He mistakenly thought that such situation (i.e., a possibility to rely on Polish laws in Lithuania) was created by the Act of Equalisation of Laws of 1697. We could also notice that Antanas Klementas was inclined to rely on the oldest laws (where possible). A few instances were found on which he was using a prohibited right of precedent, and interpreted laws incorrectly