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 THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSION Much would depend, as to the answer, on the view-point. To the man of a certain type of religious feeling it may well seem that these things necessarily follow the doctrinal doubt and scepticism which he so greatly deplores. The ultimate sanction of all morality, as he understands it, is religious. He sees that belief in future physical punish ment for wrongs done in the body no longer controls, so generally, human conduct. In the reaction against the old teaching he has seen nothing arise to take its place. Such an one does not fail to notice, moreover, that as the power of the inhibition weakens, the temptation increases in attractiveness with corresponding steadiness and in larger measure. Prizes for success are vastly enhanced in money value; increasing luxury insistently demands more lavish expenditure. A professional man feels obliged to keep step with the march of the time. Another standpoint brings a somewhat different aspect. To the moralist, the trail of commercialism is over it all. He feels that commerce has succeeded in imposing her own standards of worth, success, and respectability. He suggests that as this touchstone of the dollar is more rigorously applied and indifference to the ethical quality of any successful method for meet ing it deepens, the attendant growth in population, pari passu eliminates the restraining influence of public opinion. When a community grows so large that a man may choose his own congenial circle and be practically unknown beyond it, his conduct, provided only it complies with legal standards, is really condoned in advance. The matter presents itself to the average professional observer in yet another of its phases. He finds sufficient explanation for everything in the changed conditions under which legal business is now conducted. With rare exceptions, in America at least, the typical old-fashioned law office is a thing of the past. It can never return. The needs of the present, the prospects of the

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future, exclude the hope by its warmest admirer. Close personal relations, mutual interest and friendliness between the lawyer and his younger associates are relegated to the back of the scene or crowded entirely off the stage. System has replaced society. The object of the entire arrangement is evidently, even ostentatiously, that of se curing a money-making mechanism, inelas tic, rigorous, unsympathetic; into which the young man, just from his studies, fits, among its bureaus and departments, each with trained clerical and supervisory force, like a fresh, adjusted cog into a well-oiled machine. At best, the head of such an establishment is a well-read lawyer with but little time for present reading or the personal preparation of cases. Quite as often, however, the manifested ability lies rather in capacity for procuring business and handling it, when gained, in a manner satisfactory to the methods of a mercan tile community. The forte lies in "hust ling," "getting there, "to use the current complimentary phrases. Our professional observer notices that the rights of parties are, almost necessarily, judged under such a system not so much on their merits as on their money-winning capacity; that the mill should be made constantly to grind out dollars regardless of the quality of the grist. "Good" clients, seeking to evade incon venient legislation, will not be allowed to carry business to the similar legal "shop across the way." Meritorious cases are crowded out or given scant attention in return for an extortionate mortgage on the future verdict. "But really," the office very practically comforts itself by saying, "We cannot afford to consume, on any con tingent payment, time which can be readily sold for cash in meeting the wishes of clients with money, even prava jubentium. Charity is charity; business is business." The kindly, conscientious advice of the old prac titioner is as much a bygone thing as is the cut of the ancient worthy's clothes, or the stage coach in which he travelled to court.