accuracy on your part, and you should begin early to cultivate that sureness in your work that will come at first only with conscious, methodical painstaking, but which in time will become a habit of incalculable value to you.

There have been so many good lawyers in this country who never saw the inside of a law school that it is impossible to ignore the law office as a place to prepare for the bar examinations. But never think that because you do not have to present a certificate to enter an office that you can afford to neglect the preparatory study that the certificate stands for. On the contrary, the boy who has let his mind run wild and undisciplined will stand a better chance in the law school, where his work will be systematized for him, and where he will be under the guidance of instructors, than in an office, where he will have to rely on his own resources to a far greater degree. Such a boy has no business to study law anywhere, but least of all in an office.

If you are sure that you are mature enough to keep up a strict course of study more or less by yourself, the first thing is to find a lawyer who will take enough interest in you to direct your work. It is too much to suppose that you will find one who can spare the time from his practice to give you the same attention that you would receive from the professors in a law school, but your road will be a hard one indeed if you fall upon a man who takes you in simply to secure your services free. For in these services lies the pitfall most to be dreaded. From the first day you enter the office you will be able to make yourself useful in some way, if only by

finding a book on the shelves. And as time goes on you will become accustomed to common procedure, and will be intrusted with more and more important work. You will soon know more of practice than the average law school man ever knows on graduation; but the great danger is that you will be led to neglect your text-books for the practical work. If you do, you are lost. You may be admitted to the bar; but, as has been said, you can never be anything but a wooden, resourceless, machine-like lawyer, if you are ignorant of the theoretical side of your profession.

Do not decide to be a lawyer unless you can make the sacrifice necessary to be a good one. If you have an independent means of support that will enable you to pursue your studies tranquilly, and will carry you over the first years at the bar, which usually bring in a rather meager recompense, your case is not such a difficult one. But if you must earn your living as you go along, the necessary sacrifice will be great, and you should face it squarely before you

start out.

It is from this generation of young lawyers that the judges of the next generation will be chosen. In any community a corrupt bar will produce corrupt judges, and an ignorant bar will produce ignorant judges. The quality of the law depends ultimately on the competence and integrity of the practicing lawyers, and whether you are destined to preside over the highest court, or to be a humble practitioner in the lowest, you should feel that the responsibility for meting out justice to your fellowmen rests upon your shoulders.

-The Green Bag.

THE

HE Winter Number (1912) of the American Law School Review published a comparison, by Professor George Chase, Dean of the New York Law School, of the Use of Treatises and the Use of Casebooks in the Study of Law. This article points out that casebooks require far more reading matter than do treatises in order to cover the same "field of legal knowledge," and the conclusion is implied, if not expressed, that the text-book system is superior to the case system in preparing a student for the practice of law. The underlying assumption is that knowledge of law makes a lawyer, and the man that knows the most law is the best lawyer.

This assumption is erroneous. To the layman it no doubt appears to be the simple truth, but every lawyer that is a lawyer knows it is not true-knows from the experience of his own development as a lawyer, knows from his acquaintance with and observation of his fellow members of the bar. A lawyer is a man with a legal mind. A legal mind is one trained to apply legal rules or principles to facts. And mere knowledge of a rule of law is different from the ability to apply it.

For example: It is a rule of law that the master is liable for the acts of the servant within the scope of the employment. This is a simple rule; a child can learn it. But take an actual case, even one where the facts are simple, like that of Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas

v. Edwards, 67 S. W. 891, and try to apply this rule.

While a Katy passenger train was standing at the station in Denton, Texas, the brakeman went to a saloon or restaurant. As the train was moving away he returned hurriedly, and in so doing ran into Edwards and knocked him under the train. Edwards' arm was crushed by the wheels. He sued the railroad company for damages. The question was whether the act of the brakeman was done while he was in the discharge of his duties.

The rule of law is simple. The facts are simple. But ask a child whether the act of the brakeman was within the scope of his employment-ask yourself—and see whether the application of the rule to the facts is a simple matter. You will realize that this process requires something more than a knowledge of the law and of the facts; that it requires a mind trained in the analysis of facts and in the application of legal rules to facts.

It is this trained mind, and not their respective funds of legal knowledge, that distinguishes the good lawyer from the inefficient. There never has been, and is not now, a great lawyer who is There have been great a young man. poets, orators, generals, statesmen, business men, who were young men, but no lawyers. Why? Because of the necessity of this trained mind. Men have been able to devote themselves to some pursuit or profession until the age of

forty, and thereafter to become masters in some different profession other than the law. But no great lawyer ever began the study of law after forty years of age. Why? Because it takes at least twenty years of legal training to make a lawyer of the first rank, and before a man over forty could get this training his mind would have lost some of its amenability to training.

What, then, is the chief purpose of a law school? Is it the imparting of a knowledge of the law, or is it the making of lawyers? There is only one answer. The chief purpose of a law school is to make lawyers, and the imparting of a knowledge of the law is incidental. The chief purpose of a law school is not to try to impart as large a quantum of knowledge as possible, but to try to train the minds of the students to as high a degree of efficiency as possible in the application of legal rules. It is almost a matter of indifference whether the student learns much or learns little in the way of rules of law, provided he learns the fundamental principles; for, as a matter of fact, by the time he has an opportunity to make use of them in actual practice, he has either forgotten, or remembers indistinctly, the great mass of rules set forth in the text-books studied. And whether a lawyer knows much law, or little law, in every case he has he makes a special study of the law applicable thereto, and relies very little on his memory of what he learned as student.

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The case system teaches the fundamental rules of law, the only rules which the student remembers from his textbook studies. And it impresses these rules upon the mind better than textbooks or lectures can. So that, in the end, the student really has as great a fund of legal knowledge from the case system as from the study of text-books. But the case system does more than

teach these rules. It shows how they work. It gives a practical, together with a theoretical, knowledge of the rules. The student not only learns a rule, but he becomes acquainted with it. And there is a difference between knowing something, and being acquainted with it.

For example: We all know what an elephant is, but very few are acquainted with an elephant. If one of us were to be placed in charge of an elephant, we would not know how to handle him or make use of him. This requires acquaintance. To get acquaintance, we must handle and use. So with an automobile. Knowing what an automobile is, and knowing how to run it satisfactorily, are quite different matters. The latter requires acquaintance, which can be obtained only by experience. Knowing who a man is, and being acquainted with him, are likewise different. It only takes a moment of time and a minimum of effort to learn what a thing is; it requires considerable time and effort to get acquainted with it.

So with a rule of law. It is easy to learn. But to get acquainted with it— that is, to get such a knowledge of it that you can make use of it-requires actual experience in handling it and making use of it. And making use of it means to apply it to facts. Take the matter of consideration in a contract. I learned the definitions in the books, and passed examinations on them; but it was not until I got hold of Langdell's Cases on Contracts that I learned to know the real nature of consideration. Incidentally I discovered that the definition most preferred by the text-books, and which I had always relied on, was wrong.

The difficulty with the casebooks in use at present is that they themselves contain the application of the rules to the facts. The consequence is that if the teacher does not know how to teach

does not know how to make the student himself apply the rule to the facts of a case the student will merely learn what the opinion says, and will not develop, as he should, his power of analyzing the facts and reasoning on the application of rules. It is exactly as if a person should try to learn to play the violin by closely observing an expert play. The way to learn is to take hold of the violin, and, under the guidance of an expert, try to play. A student learns rules of law in order to use them; that is, to apply them to facts. To acquire the ability to use them, he must practice applying them to facts, and not merely observe some one else apply them. This objection to the casebooks in use may be summed up by stating that they might more properly be called opinion books.

There is another objection to the casebooks in use. A rule of law is not always set out distinctly. It must often be gathered from an opinion, in which it is discussed in such a way that trained lawyers may differ as to the rule really. laid down. This is a desirable feature in one way. It teaches the student how rules of law are created, developed, modified, and distinguished. But it hinders the student in acquiring a definite idea of what the rule itself is. Knowing what a thing is is more important than knowing how that thing came to be what it is. In this respect the text-books are superior to the casebooks.

The work of a lawyer is to apply rules to facts. He gets the rules from his

law books, the facts from his clients. Why should not the teaching of law be modeled accordingly? Why not furnish. the student with the rules, and with the facts, and let him apply the former to the latter? This would be doing real lawyer's work. It seems to me inevitable that the system of teaching law must advance another step. Books must be prepared in which rules are laid down, accurately and concisely (omitting the discussions of the rules), each rule followed by a number of "cases." By a "case" I here mean merely a concise statement of the facts of a case. Then let the student apply the rule to the facts. The above statement of a rule from the law of master and servant, and the accompanying statement of facts from Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Edwards, will furnish an example.

An idea of what such a book would be like may also be obtained from the Hornbook Series, by taking the "succinct statement of leading principles in black-letter type," and, in place of the "commentary," inserting a number of "cases." These "cases" could be obtained, either by making concise statements of the exact facts in reported cases, or by modifying the facts of such cases, or even by invention, as among the Roman jurisconsults.

This system will not do away with treatises, except those prepared especially for students. The students will still use treatises, but will use them as the practicing lawyer and judge use them.

Question: Over a year ago a client, whom we had represented for some time, introduced to us a Mr. X., who requested us to represent him in various matters. Our relations continued on a pleasant basis for a period of several months, during which time we undertook litigation in various courts for X. About three months ago we informed X. that we would no longer be able to act as his attorneys, unless he paid us for our services. Mr. X., who originally paid us a retainer of $200, agreed that we were entitled to receive a sum of several times that amount for services performed to the then date, and stated. that he would arrange to let us have a check in a few days.

Since that time Mr. X. has studiously avoided our office and ignored all communications. We appear as attorneys for him in a number of litigated matters. We do not desire to continue to represent a client of this type. We have requested him to have other attorneys substituted in our place, but he has paid no attention to our requests. We wish to drop all of his matters, but we do not wish to be accused of having been unfaithful to the trust originally reposed in us as attorneys by this client.

We would appreciate advice from you as to the manner in which we should proceed in order to be permitted to cease acting as his attorneys.

Answer: Upon the facts as stated, the Committee does not consider that the attorneys are required by any professional obligation to continue to represent the client. It is of the opinion that a peremptory notice to the client that after a certain specified date, sufficiently far away to enable him to secure and substitute new attorneys, they will not act as his attorneys, is proper. This answer, however, does not deal with the attorneys' legal right to compensation upon taking such course, nor with the legal procedure essential thereto.

How would you answer this question? Your client is the widow of a man who was a member of a fraternal insurance. company, and carried a life policy for $5,000.00. The company contests the widow's claim on the ground of withheld information in his application, but offers to pay her $1,500.00. You know