subs. phr. (common).—A smart attorney: hence, TO PUZZLE (BE AS SMART AS, BEAT, or KNOW AS MUCH AS) A PHILADELPHIA-LAWYER = to be a paragon of shrewdness: see GREENBAG.
1833. T. HAMILTON, Men and Manners in America, xi. 203. It is not unusual among the lower orders in England, when any knotty point is proposed for discussion, to say it would ‘PUZZLE A PHILADELPHIA LAWYER.’
1876. C. HINDLEY, ed. The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, 128. In that style he’d hammer out all the old and usual ‘whids,’ which to persons away south of his country,… to use a modern metaphor, would PUZZLE HALF-A-DOZEN PHILADELPHIA LAWYERS to understand.
1901. Daily Telegraph, 6 Nov., ‘Racing in the Fog.’ Racing by electric light is better, all the same, than racing by no light at all, and what entertainment is afforded by a horse-race run “in camera,” ONLY A PHILADELPHIA LAWYER WOULD BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN.
