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A NOTED LAW FIRM. By the late A. Oakey Hall. THE law directories of London and of large American cities, seem to show a preponderance of law partnerships over in dividual practitioners. But in older times, law firms were infrequent. Their establish ment came about when the practice of law in the business growth of the world assumed more the trappings of a trade than the ancient robes of the profession that Cicero adorned, and when increase in variety of litigation, through the expansions of com merce and of business, suggested to attornies that one practitioner might not be versatile enough to concentrate in himself the legal care of estates, patents, copyrights, ad miralty pleadings, jury trials, arguments in banco and office advice to clients; and that several lawyers in partnership could better attend to such a variety of matters, and, by division of labor, yet working to one end, secure individuals special attention. So that when a client invoked legal advice or aid, a legal partnership could turn him over to the member best equipped by special learning or experience to consider his case. Readers of that matchless legal novel, "Ten Thousand a Year," written by Samuel Warren, an English Q.C. of earliest Vic torian-times, will recall how this division of labor was distributed in the fictitious firm of Quirk, Gammon and Snap; and how Quirk the senior was the spider lawyer who trapped clientular flies; how Snap the junior attended to the mint, anise and cummin of law practice in minor and criminal courts; and Oily Gammon supervised expediency, drawing-room practice, distributive tact, fine phrasings and winning courtesies among clients or barristers, Q.C.s and judges. Among the score of notable law firms which, during the seventies, did large busi ness in litigation and the eomponere lites

affairs of life, was that of Vanderpoel, Green & Cuming, in New York City, and now to be considered in its separate individualism. Associated in its business, without especial nomenclature in the partnership style, were, as a junior, Almon Goodwin, and another who might be termed a special partner, Augustus L. Brown, who had been the Caleb Quirk of a preceding firm in which were all the individuals just named. Of the firm in question whose names were used, Aaron J. Vanderpoel and Robert S. Green have deceased, as has also the Caleb Quirk Brown. A new partnership has risen in its place, composed of the son of the elder Vanderpoel, of Almon Goodwin and of James R. Cuming, under the style of Vanderpoel, Cuming & Goodwin. Of the three in the departed firm, Aaron J. Vanderpoel, whose intellectual portrait in oil greets every one entering the Man hattan Club of New York City whereof he was long president, may be justly described as a born lawyer, who, in his birthplace at Kinderhook (made famous by the life resi dence of President Martin Van Buren), while yet a juvenile, had compromised school-boy strifes, had taken the part of the weak, and had aided in redressing juvenile wrongs; while being also a vigorous spokesman in sports or studies. When yet a school boy, two of his uncles were judges — one, James Vanderpoel, a circuit judge in Albany, and the other — after whom he was named — Aaron Vanderpoel, on the bench of the su perior court of the city of New York. Such professional family affiliation naturally, as well as his own mental trend, led young Vanderpoel into embracing the legal pro fession, that is composed "of sparks gathered from the ashes of all the sciences." After early school training in the famous Kinder