From that time on he was engaged on one side or the other of every murder case and of most of the important criminal cases tried in Howard or the adjoining counties. He developed with remarkable rapidity into a great trial lawyer. His eloquence, his knowledge of fundamental principles, his quick grasp of the situation, made him a dangerous opponent for the most experienced. In those days he was careless in the preparation of his cases. It was said of him that he could go into a case with one day’s notice and apparently be as well prepared as though he had given six months to preparation. Judge Harness, his last partner in Kokomo, found him “a master in marshaling his facts and in getting everything out of a case there was in it--and frequently much more.” He was an expert in handling witnesses, especially in cross-examination. He was dramatic, resourceful, a master of strategy. In one case where his client was accused of having stolen a pocketbook, he secured a wallet as nearly like the one in question as possible, and presenting this to the prosecuting witness pressed him for a positive identification. The witness walked into the trap and identified the substitute pocketbook positively as his own, on which Kern presented the pocketbook in question, thereby putting the prosecution to rout. In another case he was positive that the prosecuting witness was lying and he carried through a fine bit of dramatic acting with the desired result. Without a particle of previous evidence of the witness to rely upon, he theatrically opened the drawer of the desk before him and pulled out a roll of blank paper. Holding this in his hand and looking the witness in the eye he demanded fiercely--“Did you not on a certain occasion testify so and so in this matter?” The witness, frightened at the manner of the lawyer and suspecting that he had been trapped completely, wilted and confessed that he had testified differently before. While capable of tricks of this nature he was not known as a “tricky lawyer” in the usual acceptance of the term. He was scrupulously ethical from the day he received his first case. This knowledge of human nature which made him a power in cross-examination made him almost irresistible before the jury in argument. Here he was the master. He ran the gamut of the emotions, passing from wit and humor to pathos, and then to satire, and then denunciation, keeping the jury in laughter or tears. Often he was able to literally ridicule a case out of court.