25. Taking Technical Advantage of Opposite Counsel-Agreements with Him

A lawyer should not ignore known customs or practice of the Bar or of a particular Court, even when the law permits, without giving timely notice to the opposing counsel. As far as possible, important agreements, affecting the rights of clients, should be reduced to writing; but it is dishonorable to avoid performance of an agreement fairly made because it is not reduced to writing, as required by rules of Court.

Note: See Question and Answer No. 31, post, p. 506.

personal relations, is unprofessional. It is equally unprofessional to procure business by indirection through touters of any kind, whether allied real estate firms or trust companies advertising to secure the drawing of deeds or wills or offering retainers in exchange for executorships or trusteeships to be influenced by the lawyer. Indirect advertisement for business by furnishing or inspiring newspaper comments concerning causes in which the lawyer has been or is engaged, or concerning the manner of their conduct, the magnitude of the interests involved, the importance of the lawyer's positions, and all other like self-laudation,

A lawyer openly and in his true character may render professional services before legislative or other bodies, regarding proposed legislation and in advocacy of claims before departments of government, upon the same principles of ethics which justify his appearance before the Courts; but it is unprofessional for a lawyer so engaged to conceal his attorneyship, or to employ secret personal solicitations, or to use means other than those addressed to the reason and understanding to influence action. 27. Advertising, Direct or Indirect

The most worthy and effective advertisement possible, even for a young lawyer, and especially with his brother lawyers, is the establishment of a well-merited reputation for professional capacity and fidelity to trust. This cannot be forced, but must be the outcome of character and conduct. The publication or circulation of ordinary simple business cards, being a matter of personal taste or local custom, and sometimes of convenience, is not per se improper. But solicitation of business by circulars or advertisements, or by personal communications or interviews, not warranted by

of our high calling, and are intolerable.

Note: See (on advertising) Questions and Answers Nos. 1, 3, 4, 23, 32, and 45, post, pp. 497, 504, 506, 510; (on solicitation) Questions and Answers Nos. 14, 16, 18 and 46, post, pp. 501, 502, 510.

28. Stirring up Litigation, Directly or Through Agents

It is unprofessional for a lawyer to volunteer advice to bring a lawsuit, except in rare cases where ties of blood, relationship or trust make it his duty to do so. Stirring up strife and litigation is not only unprofessional, but it is indictable at common law. It is disreputable to hunt up defects in titles or other causes of action and inform thereof in order to be employed to bring suit, or to breed litigation by seeking out those with claims for personal injuries or those having any other grounds of action in order to secure them as clients, or to employ agents or runners for like purposes, or to pay or reward, directly or indirectly, those who bring or influence the bringing of such cases to his office, or to remunerate policemen, court or prison officials, physicians, hospital attachés or others who may succeed, under the guise of giving disinterested friendly advice, in influencing the criminal, the sick and the

injured, the ignorant or others, to seek his professional services. A duty to the public and to the profession devolves upon every member of the Bar, having knowledge of such practices upon the part of any practitioner, immediately to inform thereof to the end that the offender may be disbarred.

29. Upholding the Honor of the Profes

sion

Lawyers should expose without fear or favor before the proper tribunals corrupt or dishonest conduct in the profession, and should accept without hesitation employment against a member of the Bar who has wronged his client. The counsel upon the trial of a cause in which perjury has been committed owe it to the profession and to the public to bring the matter to the knowledge of the prosecuting authorities. The lawyer should aid in guarding the Bar against the admission to the profession of candidates unfit or unqualified because deficient in either moral character or education. He should strive at all times to uphold the honor and to maintain the dignity of the profession and to improve not only the law but the administration of justice.

Note: See Questions and Answers Nos. 19, 24, 29, 36 and 38, post, pp. 502, 504, 506, 507,

508.

31. Responsibility for Litigation

No lawyer is obliged to act either as adviser or advocate for every person who may wish to become his client. He has the right to decline employment. Every lawyer upon his own responsibility must decide what business he will accept as counsel, what causes he will bring into Court for plaintiffs, what cases he will contest in Court for defendants. The

responsibility for advising questionable transactions, for bringing questionable is the lawyer's responsibility. He cansuits, for urging questionable defenses, not escape it by urging as an excuse that he is only following his client's instructions.

32. The Lawyer's Duty in Its Last Analysis

No client, corporate or individual, however powerful, nor any cause, civil or political, however important, is entitled to receive, nor should any lawyer render, any service or advice involving disloyalty to the law whose ministers we are, or disrespect of the judicial office, which we are bound to uphold, or corruption of any person or persons exercising a public office or private trust, or deception or betrayal of the public. When rendering any such improper service or advice, the lawyer invites and merits

The lawyer must decline to conduct a civil cause or to make a defense when convinced that it is intended merely to harass or to injure the opposite party or to work oppression or wrong. But otherwise it is his right, and, having accepted retainer, it becomes his duty to insist upon the judgment of the Court as to the legal merits of his client's claim. His appearance in Court should be deemed equivalent to an assertion on his honor that in his opinion his client's case is one proper for judicial determination.

spondingly, he advances the honor of his profession and the best interests of his client when he renders service or gives advice tending to impress upon the client and his undertaking exact compliance with the strictest principles of moral law. He must also observe and advise his client to observe the statute law, though until a statute shall have been construed and interpreted by competent adjudication, he is free and is entitled to advise as to its validity and as to what he conscientiously believes to be its just meaning and extent. But above all a lawyer

will find his highest honor in a deserved reputation for fidelity to private trust and to public duty, as an honest man and as a patriotic and loyal citizen.

Note: See Question and Answer No. 48, post, p. 514 (as to division of fees).

III. OATH OF ADMISSION The general principles which should ever control the lawyer in the practice of his profession are clearly set forth in the following Oath of Admission to the Bar, formulated upon that in use in the state of Washington, and which conforms in its main outlines to the "duties" of lawyers as defined by statutory enactments in that and many other states of the Union-duties which they are sworn on admission to obey and for the willful violation of which disbarment is provided:

I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR:

I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of . . . . .

I will maintain the respect due to the Courts of Justice and judicial officers.

I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land.

I will employ for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to me such means only as are consistent with truth and honor, and will never seek to mislead the Judge or jury by any artifice or false statement of fact or law.

I will maintain the confidence and preserve inviolate the secrets of my client, and will accept no compensation in connection with his business except from him or with his knowledge and approval.

I will abstain from all offensive personality, and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which I am charged.

I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed, or delay any man's cause for lucre or malice. HELP ME GOD.

So

Note: See Question and Answer No. 13, post, p. 501.

committee on the unlawful practice of the law, which has laid out for itself a programme to pursue those who falsely pretend to practice law, including those who have no legal right to practice, but who do so, nevertheless, and also those who, being notaries public, impose on the ignorant foreigner by the misleading likeness of their official name to the notaries of other countries. The Membership Committee of this Association has undertaken incidentally the task of weeding out those who publicly posed as lawyers and who had never been admitted to practice. Of these it found. 650, or more than 5 per cent. of the entire Bar, whose activities it apparently, if not verily, suppressed.

This era of reform began with the institution of uniform Bar examinations throughout the state, which gradually became more searching, and were accompanied by a stricter scrutiny of the qualifications of those applying for examination. Then came greater activity and greater efficiency of the Grievance Committee of the City Bar Association, which has become a real power for good in cleansing the Augean stables of the condition which it found. This era began with it, when it happily occurred to some one to suggest the employment on a salary of regular counsel to prepare cases upon the complaints submitted to the Grievance Committee. Some idea of the work done by this Committee now may be gained from the figures submitted in its last annual report. nine members who volunteer their services, without compensation, held about 60 meetings during the year, more than one a week, several of them lasting throughout the day, beginning at 10 o'clock in the morning and lasting till 6 in the evening. The Committee or its counsel considered 927 complaints

The

against members of the Bar, and 29 complaints against the method of administering justice. ministering justice. The Association employs in this work five regularly retained attorneys, as well as clerks and stenographers. It affords them ample quarters in the rooms of the Association, and the work cost the Association last year $23,000, besides the value of the room rent of two floors in one of its buildings-all a voluntary contribution made by its membership of 2,100 to the purification of the Bar. Of this sum about $4,000 was returned by the county as the expense of successful prosecutions for disbarment. Its attorneys sifted many of these complaints and considered them ill-founded. The Committee heard 140 cases, it decided to prosecute 56, and commenced 46 prosecutions during the year. In preparing and presenting these cases it had the volunteer assistance of 15 attorneys, all of whom served without compensation: This, it will be remembered, was the activity of a single year selected for illustration.

The Discipline Committee of the County Association does a similar but less effective work, because its resources are considerably less, only about $4,000 a year. Note that here is an aggregate sum of $27,000 a year voluntarily devoted by lawyers to the systematic eradication of evil practices at the Bar, which ought never to have been permitted to creep in, and which are of a character to justify the carper and the novelist in their pictures of the wickedness of certain lawyers.

The actually excellent work of the Grievance Committees is well supplemented by the Courts, and particularly by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Department having jurisdiction in New York County, and the Second Department, in

Brooklyn. The Appellate Divisions have jurisdiction over the calling of attorneys to account for professional misconduct. I addressed the New York State Bar Association last winter on the subject of Disbarment, and for that purpose considered the statistics of the subject in our state. I found that, while the reported cases of discipline at all times prior to 1900 aggregated 19, since that date, with incomplete reports for 1912, they numbered 73, and the Bar has been cleaned during that period of some of those whose practices were most flagrant.

So much for the present day correctional methods with us. The Bar is at last conscious that in New York City at least there is an alert Court, and that there are two alert and active Grievance Committees in New York County, and one in Brooklyn.1

Thomas H. Hubbard, of the American Bar Association's Committee, and at the Fordham University and the Columbia University Law Schools; character committees have been instituted, charged by the Courts with the duty of investigating the character and antecedents of those applying for admission; and last, but not least, has been established what the Illinois Law Review has happily called the Legal Ethics Clinic of the New York County Lawyers' Association. These are all recognized agencies in the recent revival of the ethical propaganda in the profession. And then there is still another agency whose progress I have watched from its start, and with whose work I am familiar, and whose influence I know to have been powerful, though unrecognized. This is a social group of lawyers and judges organized to discuss and analyze practical problems of legal ethics, which was started, and has been maintained through several winters, at the suggestion of the Director of the Society of Ethical Culture.

The most novel, and to me the most interesting, of these agencies, is the Committee on Professional Ethics of the New York County Lawyers' Association, which I have already styled the Legal Ethics Clinic. Probably most of you are acquainted with Thomas Leaming's book, "A Philadelphia Lawyer in the London Courts,” and you may remember his account of the wholesome influence exercised on the English Bar, by the General Council of the Bar, in its decisions on questions of professional etiquette. That suggestion was the foundation of the power which the Committee of our Association has exercised for about two years in advising inquirers concerning questions of proper professional conduct. Anybody is privileged to address inquiries to the Committee, which it endeavors