one-horse lawyer

English

Etymology

From the agricultural phrase one-horse meaning 'to be drawn/worked by a single horse.' This led to "one-horse" being expanded to mean anything small or contemptible.

Noun

one-horse lawyer (plural one-horse lawyers)

1. A lawyer who has only worked in a small town, lacking the experience and sophistication of more prominent lawyers.
   • 1998, Gene Griessman, B. Eugene Griessman, Abraham Lincoln, The Words Lincoln Lived By, page 53:

     The two chatted about several matters, and then the visitor commented, "Mr. Lincoln, if anybody had told me that in a general crisis like this the people were going out to a little one-horse town to pick out a one-horse lawyer for President, I wouldn't have believed it."

   • 2007, Bert S. Lang, A Divine Sneeze, page 89:

     I was a one horse lawyer in this one horse town.

   • 2013, Clarence Darrow, Randall Tietjen, In the Clutches of the Law: Clarence Darrow's Letters, page 153:

     Then Warren picked up a one-horse lawyer down in his own town and he and that lawyer went to St. Paul where Warren made another speech, which—of course—from a lawyer's standpoint was wholly irrelevant and insulting.