Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/106

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Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 15J Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anecdotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. /AUR "Anonymous" Philadelphia correspomlent has favored us with another communi cation, which our readers will find both instructive and entertaining. Editor of the " Green Bag" : — Your correspondent, in deprecating In a former communication the fact that so many in the legal pro fession are of the opinion that to be " a case lawyer" is to be possessed of the highest standard of legal education, had no idea that he was to be confronted through the columns of your " entertaining maga zine with the reports made by your contributor, Mr. Irving Browne, of the di cisions made in "the ram case" (Oakes v. Spaulding), and in "the cow and maple syrup case" (Bush v. Brainard). That these decisions are highly valuable as precedents admits not of a doubt; but couched as they are in the ad mirable poetic language of Mr. Browne, they cannot fail (jf being indelibly impressed upon the mind of the reader. Had your correspondent been aware of their having been made, he certainly would have referred to them in his rules for the guidance of "case lawyers " published in the September number of your " Green Bag." As it is never too late to do good, he would here beg leave to add to the former rules the following, namely : If you have a "ram" case, see " Green Bag," August, 1889, p. 328. If you have a "cow" case, — the cow being fond of maple syrup, — see Ibid., November, 1889, p. 470 et set]. Mr. Browne's style of reporting cannot certainly be regarded as useless, but " entertaining " in the highest degree. It is both amusing and instructive; and had he been present at numberless little gath erings of members of the fraternity at which his articles were read, and listened to the shouts of laughter and hearty applause which greeted the points made therein, he would have felt amply re paid for his able efforts. This much can at least be said, — the " case lawyers " have added to their store of knowledge; whilst the other fellows — that is, the 12

old fogies with classical proclivities — clap their hands with glee, and comprehending, take special delight in Mr. Browne's methods of stating a case, giving the decisions made and the points of law established. Turning from this matter, however, your corre spondent now gives place to a few thoughts which have suggested themselves in his daily routine of life. It has been to him a matter of astonishment to find that there are those admitted to the bar who really believe that a lawyer's education is completed when he has obtained a smattering of Blackstone, — has gained a knowledge of a few of the principal rules governing Evidence, — and when he has be come posted in the statute laws of his State and in the forms to be used in the issuing of legal pro cess. According to their views, this is all-sufficient; all else that is needed for the purposes of practice is to hunt up decisions upon parallel cases just as business happens to come in and occasion require. This class of practitioners are not limited to one State; triey are to be found in nearly every State of the Union, and they are the ones who are loudest in preaching up what they style " Legal Reform." Never having studied the law as a sci ence, never having become impressed with a sense of its inherent value as a medium for developing intel lectuality and logical powers the exercise of which is all-powerful in promoting the proper administra tion of law, justice, and right, they cannot be made to see that the rules and forms to which they are op posed and would have abolished, have ever been the bulwarks of the law, affording the amplest protec tion to the lives, liberties, and property of the people. Seeing no utility in a study of the common law of England, of course they can see none in studying the origin and history of Equity and Equity Juris prudence. The nice distinctions between remedies at law and in equity are to them as a sealed book. Unable themselves to discern these, but finding them every now and again turning up as snags in the way in the course of their practice, they would have equitable remedies at once done away with, and a style of practice substituted which they can the more readilv understand. To suit the views of such as these, shall the standard of legal education be lowered to their level? or shall it be elevated to that established and recognized in the early past, when the members of the profession were not wageworkers, but men of thorough training and of per