Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/107

 THE GREEN BAG to subscribe to the code as a condition precedent to admission and will then, through suspension or disbarment, require those admitted to live up to the code, much good will no doubt result. ' In any event, as the committee report of 1907 points out, "Your committee are of opinion that the adoption of canons of professional ethics by the American Bar Association is destined to have a powerful and far-reaching in fluence upon the development of our pro fession, indeed to so great an extent that it will be difficult to overestimate the importance of the event." ' It is hard to mark the point where manners give way to morals, and all codes of legal ethics confuse the two. Perhaps it is as well that no attempt is made to separate them in such a code, and the writer will certainly not attempt to do so here. The important thing is to encourage right conduct, whether that conduct consti tutes good manners merely or good morals. In order to see what the codes of legal ethics treat of, and to bring in an orderly way before the non-professional reader the problems to be dealt with, let us take up the various phases of a lawyer's life from his admission to the bar on. When the young lawyer is admitted to the bar, he either serves some older lawyer as a clerk or else opens an office of some kind for himself. In either event he engages in cases, either for his employer or for himself. If he is employed by a lawyer he owes the general duties owed by all employees to their employers, all of which merge in the one general duty to devote his best efforts to furthering the interests of his employer. The duties which an employee owes to his employer are subject, however, to the higher claims of truth and conscience upon the employee. Now that the class of salaried law clerks is rapidly growing in uur large cities, there is genuine need of a legal code provision condemning any lawyer who will

encourage any clerk of his to do, or allow him to do, anything in the course of his employment which would be immoral or unprofessional if done by the employer. Beyond calling for some such provision, nothing need be said of the situation of the lawyer and his law clerk, and we may now devote our attention to the lawyer who takes cases for himself. We may add, however, that the above rule suggested for the lawyer employer should be broadened to make the lawyer responsible for the culpable practices of his partner or partners. The first question that comes before a lawyer who takes cases for himself is the one of legitimate advertising. The code pro visions vary in regard to that question, but the traditional and conservative stand is represented in the following combination of the Alabama and Michigan code provisions, viz.: ''The insertion of business cards in newspapers, tendering professional services to the general public, or announcing business changes, is proper; but a special solicitation of particular individuals to become clients ought to be avoided. Indirect advertise ment for business, by furnishing or inspiring editorials or press notices, regarding causes in which the attorney takes part, the manner in which they are conducted, the impor tance of his positions, the magnitude of the interests involved, and all other like selflaudation, is of evil tendency and wholly unprofessional. " ' It should be noted that on this question of advertising there is growing dissent. The professional feeling against the solicitation of business seems to have arisen from the distinction in England between attorneys and counsellors on the one hand, and barristers on the other. "The latter were to be sought only because of their learning and skill, it being undignified to seek employ ment in any manner. " ' Being employed 1 Alabama code, sec. 16; Michigan code, sec. See sec. 18 of Report of August, 1907, p. 21. p. 316. 51.
 * Kinkead's Jurisprudence Law and Ethics,

1 Page 3 of Report of August, 1907.