A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade.

The line frames legal practice as a profession whose primary “inventory” is intangible: judgment, expertise, and the careful expenditure of hours. It implies that a lawyer’s value is not mainly in physical goods or even in courtroom theatrics, but in the disciplined application of knowledge to a client’s problem. The phrasing also carries an ethical undertone: because time and counsel are the lawyer’s real commodity, they should be offered with care—neither squandered nor cynically exploited. In a broader sense, the quote captures a modern professional-services principle: what clients purchase is informed attention, and the provider’s integrity is bound up with how that attention is priced and delivered.