546
THE GREEN BAG
his fee, which is always endorsed on the brief, may read : "Mr. J.Jones ....
35 guineas i guinea 36 guineas
with you Sir J. Black, K.C." The leader's brief will be endorsed: "Sir J. Black, K.C. . 50 guineas 2 guineas 52 guineas with you MR. J. JONES." The fee is not usually sent by the solicitor with the brief, but a running account with settlements at intervals is common. Con tingent fees are absolutely prohibited. The barrister gets his fee, or is credited with it, irrespective of the result. All speculation as to barrister's profes sional earnings must be vague, for there can be little accurate knowledge on such a subject. Chancery men seem to earn much less than common-law men and their business to be of a quieter and less conspicuous character. At the fireside in chambers in Lincoln's Inn, if the conversation drifts to fees, one may hear a discussion as to how many earn £2,000 and a doubt expressed whether morethan three men average £5,000, but the gossips will add that they do not really know the facts. Common-law men's fees, while larger, are equally a matter of guesswork. One hears of the large earnings of Benjamin a genera tion ago, and R. Barry O'Brien, in his life of Sir Charles Russell, quotes from his fee book yearly, showing that the year he was called to the Bar he took only £117, while thirty-five years later — in 1894 — and just before he was elevated to the bench, his fees for the years were £22,517. For the ten years preceding he had averaged
£16,842, and, for the ten years before that, £10,903. The biographer of Sir Frank Lockwood, a successful barrister, relates that he earned £120 his first year and took in £2,000 in his eighth year, while he was glad to accept during his twenty-second year the solicitor generalship, at a salary of £9,000. The clerk of a recent high judicial officer is authority for the statement that the year before he went upon the Bench his fees ag gregated 30,000 guineas. It seems to be the general opinion of those well informed that the most distinguished leader may, at the height of his career, take 20,000 to 25,000 guineas. All such estimates must, how ever, be received with the utmost reserve and no one could undertake to vouch for them. Barristers' fees are, of course, for purely professional services, and do not come within the same category as the immense sums one occasionally hears of being re ceived by American lawyers-; generally, how ever, not for real professional services in litigation, but for success in promoting, merging, or reorganizing business enter prises. English barristers' fees are practically all gain, as there are no office expenses worth mentioning. Upon the whole, professional rewards do not strike an American as particularly large, remembering that the recipients are at the top of the profession in London, which means the kingdom — for all litiga tion of importance goes up to London and to be a member of the English bar prac tically means to be a barrister in the London courts, although there are a few barristers at large centers like Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds who have quite lucrative prac tices. We have no bar with which to institute comparisons. Each county of every state has its own bar, and all the members of the county bars practising in the appellate court of a given state compose the bar of that state, which is a complete entity.
