Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/748

 THE BARS OF UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND claim for damages for negligence of the advocate. Regarding Rule 57 of the projected code to the effect that contingent fees may be contracted for, from what has been said before, it will be seen that no such rule obtains or can obtain in England. The provisions of Rule 11 of the projected code setting forth the limits of the action of the attorney in the support of his client's cause may not be inappropriately com pared with the provisions of the Memoir des Justices (temp Edward 2.) that every pleader be charged by oath that he will not maintain nor defend what is wrong or false to his knowledge, but will fight (guerra) for his client to the utmost of his ability. I do not know how far the mysterious practice of "devilling" obtains in the United States. In England the system may be described as the process by which an advocate of business aptitude, instructed by a client in any particular case, hands over to another advocate the conduct of that case whilst himself retaining the re muneration. It is traditional, it is not wholly satisfactory, but it is regulated by very precise rules which form a not incon siderable portion of the etiquette of the profession. I omit the consideration of the series of elaborate, though largely unwritten rules which obtain in England regarding the relations between the two branches of the profession which cx conccssis have no place in the American Forum. Its stringency in England may be judged from this extreme case "that counsel is not entitled to accept a dock defence at police courts (which means a remuneration to counsel of a single guinea) without the intervention of a solicitor." I have said that there are many matters on the other hand where the rule in the United States is more stringent than in England. There are two instances of rules of collateral matters contained in the projected code which I venture to commend,

"that newspaper reports should be taken from the records and papers on file in the ■court," is a salutary counsel of perfection of Wisconsin which England would wel come. "That money or other trust money coming into the possession of the attorney should be promptly reported and never commingled with his private property or used by him except with his client's know ledge and consent," is a provision in the Alabama code which would be valuable in England. I need scarcely add that in England it would affect only that branch of the profession which has entrusted to it the care of other people's money since the advocate pure and simple engaged in jurisconsultation or forensic presentment esteems himself fortunate to be entrusted with his own in keeping and never holds anything of any tangible value belonging to his client save for the temporary purposes of inspec tion and demonstration. I may add that in England, the recent corporate public action of the solicitors is in the direction of a self denying ordinance to the effect of this most wise provision. Such are some of the salient points which I deem myself at liberty, within the space of this article, to bring together for the purpose of affording some comparison between the two systems of professional practice which have been evolved in the two channels of national development. Admiration cannot be withheld from the searching and highminded standard which the Bar in the old country maintains by tradition, and which the Bar in the new country has evolved in the course of its great history; a history which no Bar in the civilized world can approach, and to which only the ancient Bar of Republican Rome affords a parallel, in the close association with the state, not only as an order, but with eminent personal interventions in public events and in the constant and invaluable services rendered, in the throes of the making, and in the stress ^of the advance, of a great nation. London, Eng., October, 1907.