distinct evils arising from the lax laws of our State concerning admission of attorneys to the Bar, or a misunderstanding of those laws which we have, and a lax enforcement of those we have. The first evil arises from the fact that it has always seemed to be a doubtful question with the members of the Bar and the Courts as to whether Chapter 24 of the Acts of 1867-68 was repealed by Chapter 247 of the Acts of 1903, the former Act prescribing the conditions upon which "any one of the age of 21 years and of good standing" might practice before the Justices of the Peace and the County Court of his county. As a consequence of this doubt, your Committee is informed that in some sections of the State many persons with practically no real knowledge of the law avail themselves of this Act, and therefrom impose themselves upon the practice in general. The second of these evils was called to the attention of this Association by our predecessor committee in its report at the meeting at Memphis last year; that is, that attorneys from other jurisdictions are presented to the Courts of Tennessee and enrolled without having first obtained a license as required by said Act of 1903. The third evil is the enrolling of half-trained practitioners who have 'had little, if any, opportunity to become imbued with the proper principles and true spirit of the profession and the resulting retarding of the progress of the courts, increasing the expense of the administration of justice because of poorly drafted pleadings, ill advised procedure, haphazard ideas of rights and remedies and ignorance of the proper methods of forming issues. As was said by Mr. Root in his President's Address before the American Bar Association last year, "in many jurisdictions there is a considerable percentage of the bar whose practice causes the courts double time and labor because the practitioner is not properly trained to use the machinery furnished by the public for the protection of his clients. In the meantime, other litigation waits, and "the public pays the expense," and this is partially true for our State.

Since our meeting last year the Nashville Bar and Library Association has had before the Supreme Court a very interesting case on the question of admission to the bar, styled "In re Bowers," on which there are two short opinions of the Court reported in 192 S. W., page 919, and 194 S. W., page 1093, re

spectively. This Committee is not informed as to what were the exact issues primarily involved in this cause and does not attempt to state that the Nashville Bar and Library Association was right in its contentions or to censure the Defendant Bowers, but we do think the Nashville Bar and Library Association should be commended for its vigilance and zeal in safeguarding the character and standing of attorneys; and we sincerely urge that the two resolutions of this Association, adopted at the meeting last year, should be given vigorous attention.

The Committee is indebted to the able discussion of Judge Judd at Memphis last year, incorporated in full in the proceedings of the Association of 1916, for the information that Tennessee is one of only thirteen States prescribing no specific time of study required of an applicant for admission to the bar, while twenty-seven States and Territories require three years' study and ten require two years' study. Of the twenty-seven are Colorado, Massachustts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pensylvania and Wisconsin, which are considered among the leading States of the Union in the question of legal education and able courts, and both Maryland and Montana are found in the ten. (N. B.-Massachusetts has reduced the requirements to two years since Judge Judd's data were compiled.) As said by President Root, "the ease with which admission to the bar is secured in many jurisdictions and the attraction of a career which affords a living without manual labor has crowded the Bar with more lawyers than are necessary to do the business," and these "superfluous lawyers mere pensioners and drags upon the community, and upon ali sound, economic principles ought to be set to some other useful work." He pointed out in his address that there is a tendency of the Legislatures to cater to the supposed democratic principles of "let every man have his chance," and that very recently Massachusetts changed her requirements from three years to two, while in Indiana anyone of good moral character may prac tice law by a constitutional provision which, by the way, the Indiana Bench and Bar have never been able to amend. He also calls attention to a comparison of American methods, of which Tennessee's is about the average, of qualifying and admitting to practice of its attorneys to the three years' probation required

are

in France and four years' training in Germany, to which he might have added Spain's six years of university study for the degree of Licenciatura and an additional year for the degree of Doctor of Law.

Of the three evils we have mentioned, the first two may be easily eradicated by proper legislation, first by an act expressly repealing the Act of 1867-68, and second by an act properly drawn or a rule properly enforced preventing attorneys from other jurisdiction from being entered on our rolls until they have complied with the requirements for the admission to the Bar in Tennessee. But as to the third evil, your Committee believes that legislation merely requiring a certain number of years or months of study of the law in a law office or in an accredited school or a rule of the Supreme Court requiring the same alone will not suffice to accomplish the result desired. In many of the States and most of the leading medical schools a very high standard of literary or adademic education is required of the applicant. In the medical department of the Vanderbilt University two years' academic education in college, or its equivalent, is required before the student is admitted to the medical school. A great percent of the leading medical schools require three years. The same may be said of the schools of Dentistry and of Divinity and of other professional schools, and, indeed, the same may be said of some of the leading law schools of the country. It is axiomatic that the broader and better the student's general and academic and literary education before beginning the study of law the more thoroughly he will master the legal principles and logic. Therefore, we respectfully submit to the consideration of the Association the question of the legal profession in Tennessee taking some action towards the betterment of and the raising to a higher standard the educational requirements other than legal for admission to the bar, and sincerely urge that some action be taken to that end; but in so far as this Committee has never before, to our knowledge, undertaken to consider this question, we think the form of action of the Association, if any, should be determined upon after an open discussion of the subject. Dean John H. Wigmore said before the Section of Legal Education of the American Bar Association, "The law as a profession has lost its prestige of lead

ership in public thought. It will never regain it so long as it declines to insist that its followers should have the best attainable education." Your Committee thinks that the literary or academic education of applicants for admission to the bar should receive the thought and consideration of the Bench and Bar as seriously as their legal education to the end that the prestige and standard of the profession be maintained.

Another phase of legal education to which, so far as we have been able to learn, the Association and the Committees on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar have never directed any definite attention, on which the Association has certainly never adopted any course of action, and which we think is of vital importance and which should receive the attention of both our Committee and Association, is the Legal Clinic. As Dean W. R. Vance said in an address before the Minnesota Bar Association, "At the present time I think there is no man connected with a law school who is fair minded and reasonably intelligent who will not admit that the training of the law school is weak on the practice side." Doubtless there are but few graduates of the law schools who know how, the day they receive their diplomas, to institute a simple replevin suit in a Justice of the Peace's Court, much less draw a formal bill of exceptions or entry showing motion for new trial, appeal, etc., and other matters of procedure more complex. There are but two methods by which the law student can acquire this education, the Moot Court and the Legal Clinic. Medical schools have their Medical Clinics, Dental schools their Dental Clinics, and all other professional schools give their students education on the practical side of the profes sion. Some law schools do this by the Moot Court, the efficiency of which is usually limited. Some law schools also provide for their students to gain knowledge of procedure and practice through Legal Clinics, but most clinics are not for the benefit of the law student and are not founded and operated in any way in consideration of the law student, but as charitable institutions. There are four Legal Clinics in Tennessee, one at Chattanooga, of which Mr. R. T. Hudson is Superintendent; one at Knoxville, with which Mr. Malcolm C. McDermott is connected, which we are informed is operated partly by and partly for the benefit of the law students of the University of Tennessee; another at

Memphis, of which Mr. Charles M. Bryan is the head, and the fourth at Nashville under the auspices of the Commercial Club of Nashville, the clinics at Chattanooga and Memphis being in fact just in process of formation.

More and more is being said each week in the legal publications and by the leaders in thought concerning legal education urging the formation and maintenance of Legal Clinics, not only as charitable institutions, but from the student's point of view or as an essential step forward in legal education, a very able article of Dean Wigmore's having appeared in the May, 1917, Illinois Law Review, another by Mr. William V. Rowe in the April Illinois Law Review, 1917, and another by Mr. Reginald Heber Smith, counsel for the Boston Legal Aid Society, which we commend to the consideration of the members of this Association; and because we believe that the Legal Clinic in which the law student may learn practice and procedure is one of the means of helping to improve the administration of justice and the effective operation and enforcement of law, we have thus respectfully called the Association's attention to its consideration, at the risk of making our report seem tedious and unnecessarily long.

Respectfully submitted,

GILES L. EVANS, Chairman;
JOHN W. JUDD,

ROBT. BURROW,

S. P. FITZHUGH.

THE PRESIDENT: Before discussing the matter suggested by Mr. Evans, we wish to hear from Judge Judd.

JUDGE JUDD: At the last meeting of this Association at Memphis a years ago, among other things that we did this resolution was introduced as the result of some considerable discussion by myself and probably others in reference to the subject legal education and admission to the bar. The resolution is as follows: "Be it resolved by the Bar Association of Tennessee that the Justices of the Supreme Court of Tennessee be, and they are hereby respectfully requested and urged to amend the rules governing the admission of attorneys to the practice of law, so as to require that all applicants