Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/55

PRACTICE OF LAW IN NEW YORK CITY 29 Distinguished members of our bar have told the writer of cases in which there was proof positive for disbarment, but that the au- thorities, on having that proof set before them, continued passive. There are inquiries into professional behavior instituted by the court of its own motion, where justice halts because the aggrieved party cannot pay to take up the referee's report. As a rule, a proceeding to disbar is an incident to a hot litigation. The courts always strive to have the lawyers simply fight out their cases, and to keep them from fighting each other. Every disbar- ment would defeat this purpose; and, besides, our innumerable statutory penalties cover nearly every act that would justify striking a name from the roll of attorneys. The bar is generous. An attorney who has made a single mis- step may by his good conduct ward off even any reference to it. The Nemesis of hard professional misconduct, no matter of how brilliant parts the offender be, is simply malodorous repute. Knowledge of this spreads through bench, bar, and laity until all of his doings and sayings are taken ^.s, prima facie spurious. On general principles, even our elective judiciary stands by the bar. Our local reports tell of a citizen of wealth who by his holo- graphic will proclaimed his dislike of lawyers, and named a private tribunal by which disputes as to the construction and interpreta- tion of his will might be settled. The Appellate Court declared this null, and excusably said that the testator, led by his marked dislike of the profession, carefully framed a will to defeat his own intent. A sweeping judgment on lawyers as a class will not do. Reason usually allows correct judgments only on this one or that one according to his own deserts. The real leaders of our bar are few. They form a coterie, and enjoy special privileges in open court. They are not necessarily to be found in our " big offices." The real strength of each man's grip on his position is his integrity and other people's faith in it ; then come his learning and technical skill, and his fair, high-minded use of them. There are no men in the community whose conduct is more steadily tested by high ex- actions. As moral factors hereabouts, they are unexcelled by any men of any calling, and the position of each such leader is more honorable and more to be envied than any place on our bench, as at present constituted. The line between civil and criminal practice is rigidly fixed. The vast majority of the profession knows little or nothing about the Criminal Codes, and not infrequently one meets a well informed