6o
THE GREEN BAG
The duty of the attorney to get such a state ment is fundamental. The codes of legal ethics nearly all so provide, and urge in addition that the controversy be adjusted without litigation if practicable. They also declare that "the miscarriages to which justice is subject and the uncertainty of predicting results, admonish attorneys to beware of bold and confident assurances to clients, especially where the employment • depends upon the assurance, and the case is not plain. " l If during the dient's statement of the case it becomes apparent that the attorney has obligations to or relations with the opposite parties which "will hinder or seriously embarrass the full and fearless discharge of all his duties" * he must decline to appear in the cause, and in any event "an attorney is in honor bound to disclose to his client at the time of retainer all the circumstances of his relation to the parties, or interest in, or con nection with the controversy, which might justly influence the client in the selection of his attorney,"1 and "can never represent conflicting interests in the same suit or transaction, except by 'express consent of all so concerned, with full knowledge of the facts. " 4 The next question for an attorney who has obtained as full a knowledge as possible of his client's cause and who has no ties which prevent his being retained is to deter mine whether it is the right kind of a case to take. The various state legal codes take advanced ground in that matter. Take for instance section 10 of the Colorado code which is as follows : "Nothing has been more potential in creating and pandering to popular prej udice against lawyers as a class, and in withholding from the profession the full measure of public esteem and confidence which belongs to the proper discharge of 1 Sec. 35 of Report of August, 1907, p. 28. 1 Sec. 37 of Report of August, 1907, p. 28. •' Ibid. 4 Sec. 28 of Report of August, 1907, p. 25
its duties, than the false claim, often set up by the unscrupulous in defense of ques tionable transactions, that it is an attor ney's duty to do everything to succeed in his client's cause. "An attorney 'owes entire devotion to the interest of his "client, warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of his cause, and the exertion of the utmost skill and ability,' to the end that nothing may be taken or withheld from him, save by the rules of law, legally applied. No sacrifice or peril, even to loss of life itself, can absolve from the fearless discharge of this duty.. Never theless, it is steadfastly to be borne in mind that the great trust is to be performed within and not without the bounds of the law which creates it. The attorney's office docs not destroy man's accountability to his Creator, or lessen the duty of obedience to law, and the obligation to his neighbor, and it does not permit, much less demand, violation of law, or any manner of fraud or chicanery for the clients sake." Unfortunately, there are still many law yers who think that an attorney should not concern himself with the question of the right or wrong of his client's cause. That notion persists for the very reason that lawyers, more than other men, realize that while an Omniscient Being can see only one side to every question, there are from our finite point of view two sides to the vast majority of disputes. Taught by hard experience that the right or the wrong of a given legal dispute may be as much in doubt after the best trained legal minds have conscientiously endeavored to give it the right disposition as it was at the start, the lawyer hesitates to believe, and rightly hesitates to believe, that his client is in the wrong. It is his business to give the client the benefit of every reasonable doubt. If he does not know that the civil action's prosecution or defense which he is asked to undertake is unjust, and by "know" is meant be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, then he can with a clear conscience take the case. He must not shut his eyes to the facts, and he must resolve his strong suspicions, for, as all the state legal codes
