of the lawyers, and the conscience of the courts; and they are both groping in a wild and illimitable field of discretion, and necessarily of doubt.1

1 I note with satisfaction that the American Bar Association has taken up the subject of professional ethics. Its agitation ought to awaken introspection; but its

1

effect must be, necessarily, superficial. Ethics must be taught to the students as part of their preliminary education.

CHAPTER VI.

NATURE OF LAWYER'S VOCATION.

THE lawyer is called "an officer of the Court;' but, as I have said, before, that term is, generally, applied to him in modern times, when the Courts wish, summarily, to reprimand, degrade, or punish him. The lawyer must be an "officer" to justify summary measures against him, by the Courts; otherwise it would be necessary to proceed against him by the regular course of judicial procedure, as other persons are proceeded against -in civil cases by summons; in criminal offenses by indictment. Originally, the courts called upon their brethren of the bar to advise them. In moments of need or doubt, the lawyer became of great importance to the Judges. But I repeat, in this connection, the courts have long since ceased to regard him as a real, disinterested friend, adviser and judicial adjunct. The lawyers and the courts have been effectually divorced. Still, the courts could, at any time, restore his prestige, and take him, as it were, again to their bosom, as a real official friend.

While, as a supernumerary of the court, the lawyer's vocation has been enfeebled, if not totally destroyed, apart from this fact, he is an officer of very great authority and power.

At the instance of a client, he becomes the official author and creator of all judicial proceedings. He is the fountain head from whose source all legal processes flow.

The lawyer's mandate the summons, writ, or by whatever name the original process may be called, commands the appearance in court of the highest or lowliest individual in the land. In New York the lawyer issues the original mandate. His name, signed to a summons, is the beginning of legal proceedings.

Apart from suitors themselves who are permitted to appear in their own cases-no judicial action can be put in motion without the sanction of some lawyer. He is the sole officer authorized to cause a civil action to be begun. If the lawyer approves the client's demand, he can issue, or cause to be issued, process which will bring into court the proudest millionaire, the most powerful magnate, or the most influential citizen or corporation. The demand may be unfounded, the action unjustified, the whole proceeding utterly without merit, in law, or in fact, yet the defendant must obey. A lawyer, the day after he is admitted, the veriest tyro in

the profession may, without a tittle of justice or right, summon the worthiest and purest individual to answer the demands of a professional blackmailer; and although after years, it may be, of litigation, in which character, property, and expense are involved, the suit is dismissed as unfounded, yet the lawyer sits, serenely, in his office, secure from liability, exempted from acts which often, through his negligence or design, have caused untold mischief and damage. His ordinary mistakes of law, or judgment, cannot be made the basis of a legal demand against him. How many of such mistakes are made; how many causeless actions are instituted, can be, easily, computed by consulting the records of the Courts which show the number of suits finally dismissed.

An individual who possesses powers like those which I have described, is forsooth, an "officer," and one whose authority is hardly exceeded by that of any other official, known to any system of government. Upon the ipse dixit, or judgment of the lawyer, all suits are begun or defended.

Inquiring into the origin of the lawyer's power, we find that it arises from the necessities of political organization.

The law is not automatic, or self-acting; it rests dormant until some one sets its machinery

in motion. A good definition of Law, in the abstract, is that given by Hooker,-"that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law the very being of God is a Law to his working." In the concrete, as applied to political existence, it consists of declarations, enunciated by the supreme power of the State, of certain principles, or rules, for human government. It says to its subjects (as Blackstone puts it), "thou shalt or thou shalt not do this or that thing." These rules may be, and often are, violated both by individuals and communities, but until somebody complains, a law is a mere brutum fulmen. Murder goes unpunished if it is concealed; theft escapes notice if no prosecutor appears; and manifold civil rights are invaded where the party injured seeks no redress from the courts.

Now, the official and authorized agents, who put in motion the machinery of the law, are the lawyers.

When we ascertain the reason and philosophy of the subject, we begin to appreciate the full scope of the lawyer's powers.

The law is naturally separated into two great systems, the criminal and the civil.

When a crime is committed, it is regarded as an act aimed at the entire community, and so