Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/427

AT AT irregular intervals, now rapidly lessening in length, a note of warning comes to us from some admittedly authoritative source, that the client's money too largely dominates professional morale; that rising tides of commercialism stifle the cry of its outraged conscience. With suggestions of this kind coming from other quarters the profession is entirely familiar. To them, in- deed, it is fairly wonted, if not absolutely hardened. There has not been with these estimates sufficient appreciation of actual conditions to make unfavorable criticism of any value. The profession, therefore, has not been greatly affected, beyond the point of mirth, by English or other satirists who, in very unjudicial perturbation of mind, have sought to revenge the unpleasant enforcement of pleasantly incurred debts by taunting the venality and greed of their persecutors. The wit has been enjoyed, the bitterness pardoned. There has been no sting, for the sting of satire lies in its truth. Allowance, under such conditions, is easily made for ignorance and prejudice. Mentally self-conscious of its rectitude the profession has serenely gone its way.

But a change has occurred both in the source of criticism and the vehemence of its insistence. Eminent and well-esteemed counsel, like Edmund Wetmore, of New York, Alfred Hemenway, of Boston, or Henry St. George Tucker, of Virginia, suitably equipped by study, experience, and familiarity with the subject, addressing professional brethren under full sense of responsibility, unhesitatingly point out certain prevailing tendencies which they regard as detrimental. Hon. John F. Dillon, with all the force attendant upon his distinguished position, reiterates the statement.

A conscientious President of the United States, addressing the alumni of his alma mater and of her law school association, finds no topic more pressing in its claims upon his attention, or more appropriate to such an occasion, than that of the necessity for a radical change in the attitude of legal ad- visers toward clients seeking to violate or circumvent the law of the land. No enemy hath done this. It is our own familiar friend, the man who has at heart the honor. worth, and dignity which we ourselves are bound to cherish.

Ample reason exists why lawyers who seek to do their whole duty should consider with care whither we are drifting. Signs are not lacking if one will but watch the bank. A single issue of a New York daily narrates the proceedings against a metro- politan lawyer of national reputation for subornation of perjury; against a judge of a prominent city court for levying blackmail; against local attorneys for the purchase of claims against public service corporations. Other pages tell of several personal injury actions against such corporations, attorneys promoting the litigation upon contingent fees, aided by medical experts also finan- cially interested in the result. As an offset, with some faint color of justification in the need for self-protection, a prominent street railway company interposes the professional "jury fixer" between itself and what an eager public, outraged by its monopoly and extortion under perfectly devised legal forms, is anxious to mete out to it in verdicts.

Would these were temporary and exceptional happenings! They are constant and symptomatic. Is, then, the profession drop- ping into a business? Is a lawyer merely a useful tool of organized capital or the brains of assaults upon it? Is it indeed proper or permissible that he sell anything he has at any lucrative offer, with as little compunction as a merchant would sell his goods, careless of the purpose? Has the situation here hinted a cause? If so, has it a remedy, and how best may such a remedy be reached and applied?