Vol. I. NEW JERSEY MAY, 1915. No. I A LAWYER OF IDEALS1 History and literature are full of a view of our profession that does not suggest ideals. In the eleventh chapter of Luke, the 46th and 52nd verses, the words of Jesus are as follows: "And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers, for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." And again: "Woe unto you, lawyers; for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in ye hindered." So in Shakespeare, in Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene 2, in Jack Cade's Rebellion, Dick, the Butcher, says: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"; to which Cade replied: "Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment; that parchment being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say: the bee stings, but I say it is the bee's wax, for I did but seal one to a thing and I was never mine own man since." Cade, in his proclamation, said: "The law serveth as naught else in these days but for to do wrong, for nothing is sped but false matters by color of the law for mede, drede and favor." John Milton spoke of the profession as follows: "Most men are allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions and flowing fees." In an anonymous publication of 1677, in England, there appeared the following: 'An Address delivered at New Jersey Law School, January 6, 1915. "There was Law before Lawyers; there was a time when the Common Customs of the land were sufficient to secure Meum and Tuum. What has made it since so difficult? Nothing but the Comments of Lawyers confounding the Text and writhing the Laws, like a Nose of Wax, to what Figure best serves their purpose." And there were other tracts printed in the Seventeenth Century in London which bear out this view, as may be seen by their title. One was "The Downfall of Unjust Lawyers;" "Doomsday Drawing Near with Thunder and Lightning for Lawyers;" "A Rod for Lawyers who are Hereby declared Robbers and Deceivers of the Nation;" "Essay Wherein is Described the Lawyers', Smugglers' and Officers' Frauds." As in Jack Cade's time the rebels denounced the lawyers, so they were denounced in Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts. McMaster says they were denounced as "banditti, as blood-suckers, as wind bags and as smooth-tongued rogues." And this view was taken throughout the colonies, so that when the great debates were going on in the State conventions over the adoption of the Federal Constitution, much of the opposition was due to the charge that it was the "work of lawyers.' The indignation of Jack Cade and Watt Tyler and their followers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries against lawyers was probably due to the fact that the lawyers who received their education at the Inns of Court were at that time of the aristocratic class. It was further due to the fact that the Common law, in its pleading and procedure, and in the rigidity of its rules, had not kept pace with the needs of society and had become a snare of technicality to defeat justice, and the lawyers were naturally regarded as the high priests of the vicious system. The profession of law seemed to be an instrument for the defeat of justice and equity rather than their promotion. You remember what Shakespeare said in Hamlet in the grave digger's scene: "Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?" A similar explanation may be given of the feeling against lawyers in the early colonial days, even down to the revolution. As I have said, the traditions of the Puritans were of hostility. to the common law. The practice of it brought from Westminster Hall and the London Inns of Court did not please them. In the time immediately following the Revolution, the conditions with respect to property and estates had been so disturbed that the courts became full of litigation and the lawyers seemed to be the only persons who thrived on this feverish situation. The reasoning which a man who asserts the value of the profession of the law to society has to meet is this: A lawyer is one who holds himself out to advocate or defend either side of any controversy for money and the lawyers must therefore necessarily be engaged half their time in making the worse appear the better reason and so in promoting injustice and misleading the court. It becomes my first duty, therefore, in the consideration of a lawyer of ideals to justify his existence and to meet this fundamental ground for eliminating him from society. The first answer to be made is the historical one. In spite of the popular feeling at various times against the profession, much of which was justified by the particular conditions that then prevailed, history demonstrates that the paid profession of legal adviser and legal advocate has lived down all the bitterness and opposition of which the expressions I have cited give an idea, and has proved itself necessary to society by its survival to the present day. Civilized society has found it impossible to live without paid lawyers. There are four civilizations from which we derive our own which in respect to the necessity for a paid profession present remarkable analogies. I refer to those of the Jews, of the Romans, of England and of New England. In the early society of each, it was necessary to have someone advise those who got into controversies over their legal rights. The only persons who had great learning and were versed in the law were the priests. Some of the priests were judges and other acted as legal advisers of the parties in order to help the judges, and the theory was that they were as indifferent between the parties as the judges; that their interest in securing justice was the only motive that they had in giving advice and pleading causes. It was because this high ideal failed, because the Scribes and Pharisees who acted as counsel secretly took fees contrary to the Rabbinical injunction and showed their covetousness that Christ denounced them. Again in the early history of the Roman law, the early advisers and advocates were the priests-some of them were judges and others were counsel. Advocacy passed from them to the "patroni," so-called, who were prominent men in the community, with followers and supporters who were called their clients. When one of these supporters or clients became involved in a controversy, the patronus appeared in court in his behalf and assisted the court by his argument. The law known as the "Cincian" law, passed 200 B. C., forbade the patronus to receive any compensation for his services. He was supposed to be disinterested. This law was not enforced. Cicero prided himself on the fact that he had always obeyed it, but history seems to show that by gifts in advance and by testamentary dispositions from his clients, he received a considerable fortune. Augustus renewed the Cincian law, but it became a dead letter as its predecessor had been, and thereafter the Emperors who followed Augustus were content to limit the fees of the lawyers. In early England, the priests of the church were repositories of learning and they practiced law. There is no evidence that there was a statute forbidding them to take compensation for this, but there is a Bull of the Pope forbidding them to practice law at all. Down to the present day, there prevails in England the rule that while a barrister who is the lawyer that appears in court and pleads the case, may accept compensation if it is tendered him, he may not sue for compensation if he renders the service without having first secured his fee. In New England and generally in the Colonies, the Puritans and others who left England hated lawyers. They regarded them as their enemies. The oppression they had suffered had been inflicted under the authority of law, and so they brought no lawyers with them; and in a number of the Colonies the practice of the profession of the lawyer was forbidden. Not the common law but the law of God, as shown in the Bible, was the law which governed judges, and the judges were generally the ministers of the gospel, sometimes farmers, but never trained lawyers. Just as in England in early time, however, the necessities of the litigant and his groping for assistance in the maintenance or defense of his rights were manifested in a practice that grew up, by which the underlings at the court, the bailiffs, the constables and undersheriffs, advised litigants and acted for them. With no preparation in the law and with no moral restraint, they cheated their clients and increased the chicanery and injustice done in the courts. As in England a statute had to be passed very early forbidding such underlings to practice law, so three hundred years or more later, in the New England colonies, similar statutes had to be passed against the same kind of vicious attorneyship and advocacy. As the relations of people in the Colonies became more complicated, |