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A CODE OF LEGAL ETHICS BY CHARLES PROMPTED by the invitation of the Committee on Professional . Ethics of the American Bar Association to members of the Association the writer carefully considered its report of 1907, with its accompanying Codes of Ethics respectively adopted by several State Bar Associations, and the following is substantially the result of that consideration. The environment of any thinker doubt less influences his conclusions, and in a practical matter such as professional ethics, it seems proper that one should apply any proposed code to the conditions of which he is cognizant in order to foreshadow, if possible, the degree of its usefulness. The writer, therefore, considered the subject from the standpoint of local condi tions in the city of New York, while not unfamiliar with, nor blind to, conditions elsewhere. New York City presents perhaps the extreme type and latest development of the modern tendency in the practice of law, although the writer would not be understood as intimating that the ethics of all, or of any relatively great number, of New York practitioners, are a departure from well recognized standards or ideals. The Existing Codes. The writer examined the codes of ethics mentioned in the Committee's report with two ideas" in mind; first, whether the canons of the respective codes were in a desirable form, and second, whether such a code as has been adopted by the State Bar Associa tions is adequate or efficient for existing evils. He 'was forced to conclude that the answer to the second of his questions is negative, and therefore he has suggested to the Committee a somewhat radical departure from the codes already adopted by the Bar Associations in the states. This subject will be treated as a practical sugges
A. BOSTON tion at the close of this article. The suggestion for this radical departure is, however, perhaps only supplemental to the code of ethics of a bar association, and does not necessarily preclude more elaborate codes for such associations. The fact that was most patent upon an examination of the subject was that the existing codes are in the nature of by-laws of voluntary associations of lawyers. Such codes may be adopted and observed by the members of such associations without curing a single present evil. The American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, taking them as types, are all selective, voluntary associations; they may have the power to exclude members of the bar from their number, but they have no disciplinary or visitorial powers over the Bar in general, nor can they effect the relations of their own members in their capacity as officers in the state judicial systems. Such codes, therefore, are like the creeds of the churches, to be observed by those who accept them, to be rejected or disregarded by those who dislike them or are ignorant of them: failure to regard them may be accompanied by some penalty within the body, but a mere violation of these codes, unless it is also a violation of a legal duty, does not subject the member of the association, nor the non-member who is a member of the Bar, to any penalty in his official relation.1 Therefore such a code, while it may be a guide to one who seeks light, is not a curb to one who wilfully, or even ignorantly, errs. The writer, while regarding such a code as wholly inefficient against those who are degrading professional ethical standards, 1 Cf. to the same effect, in respect to a Medicat Society, People v. Medical Society of Erie Co., 32 N. Y. 187.
