Sherman Leland Whipple was born in New London, N. H. , youngest of three sons of Solomon Mason Whipple and Henrietta Kimball (Hersey) Whipple. The father - a descendant of Matthew Whipple, who settled at Ipswich Hamlet, Massachussets, as early as 1638 - was a physician, practising over miles of thinly settled rugged country. The pecuniary returns of his practice were small.
After preparation at the New London Literary and Scientific Institution (later Colby Academy), Sherman was sent to Yale College. There, by supplementing what he received from home with his earnings as a tutor, he was able to graduate in 1881 with creditable rank. After teaching school for a year, he entered the Yale Law School and graduated with honors in 1884.
He was admitted to the Connecticut and New Hampshire bars in1884, and began practice in Manchester, N. H. , but soon moved to Boston. He had few acquaintances and little influence, but through the recommendation of an older brother, already settled there, he obtained bills to collect. His promptness and energy commended him to others, and he was soon engaged in trying personal injury cases. His success was marked, and before he was thirty years old he had acquired the early experience derived from trial of many cases that is almost essential for considerable success as an advocate. Before long he was recognized as perhaps the most successful plaintiff's attorney in Boston. His work ceased to be chiefly devoted to cases of personal injury, but still he generally acted for plaintiffs. He was especially effective in attacking fraud or dishonesty, and in discovering it, however carefully concealed, by cross-examination. He was also frequently engaged in cases of contested wills. Gifted by nature with extraordinary fitness for advocacy, he enhanced by industry his natural ability. He was a hard fighter, and even in his early practice never afraid to cross swords with leaders of the bar, or to attack for his clients those entrenched behind wealth and high social position. Ready to lead a desperate charge, he could base his case on a forlorn hope, but behind every attack was thorough preparation and shrewd calculation of possible means of attaining success. Although well able to care for his clients under restricted rules of evidence and complex legal procedure, he consistently and vigorously advocated extending the admissibility of evidence and simplifying legal procedure. During a large part of his career (1899 - 1919) he practised, in association with others, under the firm name of Whipple, Sears & Ogden; later, merely under his own name. He died on October 20, 1930, at his home in Brookline, Massachussets, without a single day's illness.
Among his addresses to bar the most famous associations were "The Power of the Courts to Make Law and to Annul Legislation, " in which he advocated relieving the courts of "the duty of making decisions on questions involving political, economic and class controversies"; "The Legal Privilege of Concealing the Truth"; and "Law and Lawyers in the Twentieth Century".
In politics he was a Democrat, but his legal practice precluded devoting much time to politics. He was, however, in 1911 and again in 1912 the choice of his party for United States senator.
In appearance, he was somewhat below middle height, sturdily built, with a large head and firm mouth and chin, clear indications of his courage and tenacity. Outside of the court room Whipple was generous and friendly. The wit and humor which he used effectively for the benefit of his clients was not absent from his familiar conversation.
During the early years of his success he took many vacations in Europe, but in middle life he acquired a large estate near Plymouth, and spent there what time he could, surrounded by his family and engaged in pursuits appropriate to the country life that he loved, riding horseback and superintending not only the raising of flowers and vegetables but the breeding of Guernsey cattle.
On December 27, 1893, he married Louise Clough of Manchester, N. H. They had three children, a son and two daughters.
