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 The Green Bag Volume XXIV

June, 1912

Number 6

The American Bar Association IT is not an exaggeration to say that the chief instrumentality of con structive legal reform existing at the pres ent time is the bar association. It is an oft repeated truism that reforms deal ing with the law depend primarily upon the initiative of lawyers for their success, and the bar association of today, thanks to a happy circumstance, is something more than an organization designed primarily for mutual benefit and pleasant social intercourse among followers of a common calling. The existing bar asso ciation is a deliberative body, welcoming proposals of important projects for dis cussion, assigning subjects requiring careful study to properly qualified com mittees, and evolving the matters in vestigated in a form ripe for actual execution, whether by the association itself or by the legislative body to which it applies for legislation. One would not imply that this ideal is realized in the case of all our bar associations, but it certainly is in the more important instances. The somewhat vague popu lar notion that bar associations meet merely to hear desultory addresses that fail to command earnest thought, and that they are addicted to the futile habit of adopting resolutions that shift the duty of actual performance to the laity, does not correctly represent the methods pursued by our alert and active

bar associations in countless lines of fruitful effort. The more earnest and public-spirited members of the legal profession have probably had the keenest recognition of the great benefits that might come from organization, and have been most active in the existing bodies. To this fact, doubtless, are due the prevailing char acteristics of the bar association of today, which has received the impression of these men's personality and acquired the stamp of a statesmanlike attitude toward problems involving the form of existing or proposed laws. It is not an overstatement to call the spirit of the progressive bar association statesman like, when we consider the serious de liberation given to such subjects as the recall of judges, laws affecting large corporate business, the reform of procedure, the uniformity of state laws, and workmen's compensation. These are all topics engaging the attention of the most thoughtful publicists every where, and requiring of the legislator the same skilled attention as that given by the trained lawyer who has made an expert study of them. The stamp of a statesmanlike habit of mind which has been acquired by our bar associations will persist, and no lowering of standards can result from such a broadening of the membership of