Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/59

PRACTICE OF LAW IN NEW YORK CITY. 33 them for their special activity. This one is prominent in politics, that one in the church, another gives club dinners to represen-' tative business men, all are kindly to reporters, all laboriously angle for fees ; and it is not unheard of that clients employ such men's firms for the bold purpose of getting into relation with or near to a notability. In fact it is finally true that this bagman, however petty as a lawyer, is the distinctive mark of his firm, how- ever excellent as lawyers his partners may be. Many law firms serve corporations or large commercial houses for a yearly stipend. If it be a firm in " mercantile practice " and a jobber or retail mer- chant comes to it to be put through insolvency, this firm may learn by telephone what, if anything, the bankrupt owes to the wholesale client, and may see that in some mode the wholesalers' debt is preferred; and thus the large commercial houses find it profitable to have such mercantile law firms under steady pay. It is known that the law business of a corporation is procured and held by marked courtesies to the directors. That the counsel to a corporation should, during his retainer, support a poor rela- tion of a director, is an actual instance of such courtesy, perhaps an extreme one. Manufacturers, fiercely competing for the heavy profits in some dress fabric for which a passing fashion may create an enormous demand, easily find allies at the bar to bring innumer- able suits for infringement and injunction. It is never intended to try these suits. They are brought for advertisement, and to fluster small buyers. There are lawyers in this city who keep up steady relations with the reporters. When such a lawyer seeks foreign capital to vitalize a struggling mining corporation in Penn- sylvania, the reporters loyally give out that he represents in Eu- rope the vast interests of the Pennsylvania Coal Company. There are numerous others who fight their way to a steady incidental income out of costs from the endless motions with which they ingeniously harass an opponent as long as a litigation lasts. A brother lawyer told the writer of deliberately fighting his way thus into one hundred dollars a month steadily. Recently, the writer received a luxuriously printed pamphlet, describing a banquet by a law firm, given freely, including wine and speeches, to numerous men of substance and influence likely or desirable to be attracted to a pending business adventure. Among the pointed sparkling responses was one by a member of this firm known to be an exemplar of what is called the "new and progressive methods and ideas." He proclaims that the distinc- 5