"I couldn't just say, 'Oh, that's too bad,' " recalled Ms. Abraham, 70, a soft-spoken lawyer from Taos, N.M.

I sat next to a soft-spoken lawyer who introduced herself by her Twitter handle: maplered.

"I just don't like people to tell me what to do," said one of them, a young, soft-spoken lawyer.

When Ronald R. Parry, a soft-spoken lawyer from Kentucky, comes calling these days, life insurance companies look for cover.

Mr. de Mita, a soft-spoken 60-year-old former lawyer from southern Italy, has worked hard to lay what he hopes will be a solid base for his first try at leading the Italian Government.

For Sam Cummings, a soft-spoken Republican lawyer from Amarillo, things have gone smoothly.

Howard G. Rifkin, a soft-spoken lawyer who has worked for Mr. O'Neill since the first days of the administration, said he would probably land on his feet.

Clinton finally tried an end run around Helms by nominating a Virginian, a soft-spoken African-American lawyer named Roger L. Gregory.

Miss Komiyama, it turns out, has a crush on another sect official, Yoshinobu Aoyama, its sober and soft-spoken lawyer.

Joan Guggenheimer, a soft-spoken lawyer who had the ear of the chief executives at two of the world's biggest banks, died Sunday at her home near Scarsdale, N.Y.