Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/586

 THE LONDON COURTS in the nature of a partnership which would never be tolerated, or perhaps might have violated the etiquette forbidding barristers to extol or decry each other to clients. Even socially barristers and their families are more cohesive than in America. Of course many of them are active in the general social life of the capitol or in political circles, but nevertheless they largely wine, dine, dance, flirt, and marry in the legal fraternity. In short, there is a social side of law life in England not unlike the society of a seat of learning, an army post, or a naval station. The solicitors, while not nearly so compact a body as the barristers, are neverthe less well organized; and a firm government emanates from the Law Society, requiring mental and moral qualifications for ad mission (with strict examinations) and capa ble of purging itself of unfit practitioners. The relations between solicitors and bar risters are most agreeable. At the great dinners of the solicitors which take place at the magnificent house of the Law Society in Chancery Lane will be found the leaders of the bar with the lord justices as well as the minor judges. This building of the Law Society, the rear side of which is separated from the law courts only by Bell Yard, affords a convenient meeting and lunching place, is conducted as a first-rate club, and is supplied with one of the best law libraries in London. A law library, by the way, looks odd to an American, for the books, in stead of being bound exclusively in calf, are largely bound in the brightest of red, blue, and green cloth. SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS In America litigation begins in the court room. In England it ends there. Ameri can proceedings tend to be somewhat for mal, conventional, diffuse, and dilatory, pit falls and traps are occasionally laid by astute practitioners, which embarrass the side really in the right and delay a conclusion upon the merits. Much is incomprehensible to the layman concerned except the result. English legal proceedings on the contrary

549

are colloquial, flexible, simple, and prompt — thoroughly in touch with the spirit of the times and with the ordinary man's every day life. The legal decisions of the two countries are probably of equal value, and are held in mutual respect, and neither, perhaps, could claim any superiority over the other in its legal results, but in methods England at present is far in advance. This was not always so. Up to 1875 the English courts were most dilatory, expen sive, and unsatisfactory in method, but in these thirty years reforms in methods have been evolved, step by step, and are still pro gressing, by which the most important action can be tried, a judgment given, appeal be taken, argued, and orally decided as counsel sit down — all in ninety days. The details of these improvements are too technical for the present occasion, suffice it to say that they are characterized by the utmost simplicity, and many of them are capable of adaptation with modifications to American conditions. In America the bar is almost unorganized. It has little voice in the selection of the judges, of whose qualifications the politicians have no knowledge. It is weak in disci plining and purging itself and in command ing public respect for its rights. Its stand ards of professional propriety are not clearly enough established, although great improvement is noticeable in all these re spects. In England the bar is well organ ized and governs the whole administration of law, jealously resenting any interference with its ancient prerogatives and preserving its own professional honor. Thus a close observation of professional life in England will prove instructive and suggestive to the ever alert American. Nevertheless, he will depart with a feeling that, while at home there is room for prog ress, yet, upon the whole, the old profession in the new world well maintains its proud position. PHILADELPHIA, PA., July i, 1906.