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THE GREEN BAG

laws generally lodge the power of revocation in the Medical Board.) 3. Flagrant cases heard de novo in a court. (The medical laws, with a few exceptions, do not grant a hearing de novo.) This would have the advantage over present procedure, that it would discipline petty offenders, who now escape discipline by the comparative paltriness of their offenses, though they invite the cultivation of that craft which can continually violate ethical principles and escape all punish ment. This perhaps is not a suggestion for the American Bar Association, for it contem plates local application. But I apprehend that this Association is not after a code of ethics which will merely affect its own members: I fancy they need no code of ethics. My suggestions contemplate an efficient remedy for those offenders at the Bar who disgrace the office of Attorney and Counsellor, not merely the formulation of an ideal for those who are consciously seeking the written expression of their own highest ideals. For the purpose of illustrating the form of code which would, as a rule of conduct, meet my suggestions, I would select as the legal expression of the lawyer's duty (in addition to whatever special rules Bar Associations might adopt for the governance of their own members as such), the follow ing combination of elements, taken from the Louisiana Code and the Washington oath, modified to accord with the foregoing views, the whole of which would then read as fol lows: CODE OF ETHICS It is the Legal Duty of Members of the Bar in the State of to : 1. Support the constitution and laws of the state and of the United States. 2. Maintain the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers. 3. Employ for the purpose of maintaining causes confided to them, and of advising

clients conferring with them, such means only as are consistent with truth; never seek to mislead a judge or jury or other con stituent part of any court of justice or administrator of the law, by artifices or false statement of the law or facts. 4. Maintain inviolate the confidence and preserve the secrets of clients, subject, however, to the provisions of law with respect to the admission in evidence of such testimony. 5. Abstain from offensive personalities; advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of party, witness or other per son, unless required by the justice of the cause with which he is charged. 6. Encourage neither the commencement nor the continuance of an action or pro ceeding from any motive of passion or interest; not to reject from personal con siderations the cause of the defenseless or oppressed. 7. Live uprightly, and so conduct him self as to exhibit and enhance the dignity, honor and integrity of the profession and members of the Bar. 8. Counsel and maintain only such actions, proceedings and defenses as appear to him to be legal and just, except the defense of a person charged with a public offense. 9. In his practice generally to observe the following additional canons: The observance of high moral principle is essential to the practitioner of the law. It is his official duty not only to culti vate its observance himself, and by his own conduct, but jealously to see that it is observed by other practitioners; and that infractions of such practice are reported and properly disciplined by the proper body. In his own conduct and in his advice to clients generally, to observe the principles of action which are commonly recognized as ethically sound, and to reject those whicn are commonly regarded as open to criti cism from an ethical standpoint. 10. The reciprocal duties of the judiciary