Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/255

 220

breach of good manners for an attorney to sel to be disallowed on taxation -as between speak to counsel about the fee, and quite party and party. The amount so disallowed impossible for counsel to speak to the attor is then charged against the client; but here ney about it. All that is arranged with again the attorney is not free from peril. counsel's clerk; but what counsel Cannot do The client has the right to have the attor himself his man Friday does with impunity ney's bill taxed again, and though in such a for him. He draws the attorney's attention taxation, called " taxation as between attor to the fact that the fee indorsed is dispro- ney and client," the officer follows a some portioned to the weight of the brief, or the what more liberal scale and is allowed a importance of the case, or tells him that wider discretion, it is by no means uncom the briefs on the other side are much more mon to disallow what he may regard as excessive or unnecessary counsel's fees if "heavily " indorsed, and the attorney al most invariably alters the indorsement ac " marked " without the express consent of cording to the suggestion. But the sugges the client. The loss then falls on the attor tion must be made when the brief is offered, ney personally, for counsel never return or at any rate before the trial is begun, and fees. Bargains between attorneys and cannot under any circumstances be made clients, such as payment by proportion or afterwards. This " marking " of counsel's percentage of results, are wholly discouraged fees is often a matter of great difficulty and by English law, and the scale of fees is the delicacy with the attorney. He stands be same in an action for,£io,ooo as in an ac tween counsel and the real client, who may tion for £1000. Rarely is the conduct of an probably be a poor man whose means the action very profitable to the attorney. Busi lawsuit is sorely taxing. Counsel know ness of that kind requires a much larger nothing of this. The lay client they have staff (outdoor clerks, chamber clerks, pro never seen, and to his anxieties they are in cess servers, etc.), and is attended with much different; but the attorney has been seeing more worry and liability to reproach, and him daily, and knows his means and his therefore many of the oldest and most repu struggles. With a rich client behind him table law firms refuse all contentious busi he would gladly mark fees more liberal than ness, confining themselves to conveyancing or those marked by his opponent, but perhaps family work; and many others would gladly his client is a poor man and the opponent's relinquish that part of their business if they client a rich man, and in such case it is no could do so without offending their clients, or handing them over to other members of the easy thing to satisfy the suggestions of coun sels' clerks, and at the same time to act con profession. I know one firm who employsiderately towards the client. But that is over loo clerks, and yet their net income is not the attorney's only difficulty. He lives not half that of some other firms with less in constant dread of the taxing master. If than a fourth that staff. I have said enough he succeed in his trial the losing party has to show that the position of counsel is not to pay his costs. But these costs have to be only much more enviable than that of the taxed " as between party and party " as it is attorney in litigious business but it is also called. The officer taxes ' according to a much more profitable. A young counsel, published scale of " party and party costs," who has not married or become engaged which, though it leaves him some discretion to a solicitor's daughter and who has no as to the amount of the counsel's fees to be relatives or friends in the lower branch of allowed, does so only within a narrow range, the profession, may wait long for his oppor and it is no uncommon thing for a third or tunity, attending court and "going circuit" year after year, without ever seeing his name even half the amount actually paid to coun