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cuting attorneys. It consists of the addition of the following sentence in regard to the prosecuting attorney: "He should avoid oppression and injustice of any kind whatever." With that one change the Code of Ethics adopted in New York in January of this year is the American Bar Association's Code of Ethics. In closing my commendation of the American Bar Association's Canon of Ethics, I think I cannot do better than to quote the judgment of Judge Simeon E. Baldwin, whose retirement from the Supreme Court of Connecticut has re cently been announced and whose long and honorable career as lawyer, law teacher, and judge peculiarly qualify him to pass upon the matter. He says :— It might be too high praise to say that this code, as finally approved, could not have been made better. But the question for the Ameri
can lawyer is not whether a more perfect one could be made. It is whether this Code, having been framed after long deliberation and extensive correspondence by a capable Committee representing all parts of the United States, and adopted with practical unanimity after full opportunity for discussion by the American Bar Association, ought not, as a whole, to receive his support. If this Code is accepted by the bar asso ciations of every state as a fair general state ment of the main duties of members of the legal profession, a great purpose will be well accomplished. An authoritative criterion will be supplied, by which every lawyer can be safely guided, when he is in doubt as to the conduct he should pursue in respect to any of the questions which oftenest prove a source of perplexity. The law student will have a mentor always at hand. The courts will hesitate less in enforcing the discipline of the bar, since professional misconduct will be, more than ever before, a sinning against the light.2
- 8 Columbia Law Review, 541, 546-7.
To James Barr Ames By a Harvard Law Student A student of ye ancient English schools Once met his legal Master in the yard And said, "This time I shove aside the rules, Take off your wig, I'm going to call you 'pard'!" And so, dear Dean, ere passes this bright day I, too, from reason's path shall step apart To tell you things that I have longed to say But never dared since they concerned the heart. It simply comes to this — we love you, James; The statute time our suit shall never Barr, We shall recover wisdom from our Ames Though from your presence we have gone afar; Oh! we shall count it great that once we knew The peerless Master of the law, James — you!
