The Lawyer's Livelihood ciers, the manufacturers, and the mer chants, as far, relatively, as in the heroic age when the traditional fate of the lawyer was to die poor, a destiny reserved now for particular pursuit by philanthropists arranging for post humous praise. But amplitude of means may result to the lawyer from contact with affairs of twentieth century magnitude, and this without a suggestion of "touch" in the specific sense recently developed in the language of the street. Auber re pelled the imputation of advancing years, suggested by a stray gray hair on his shoulder, by declaring that "some old man in the crowd must have brushed against me." So, the trusted and con genial counsel of the present day may find that his justly earned remuneration, willingly accorded, by clients of timely fortune, partakes of the circumambient affluence. Accordingly lawyers of our time both in England and America, highly esteemed by the general public as well as by their professional brethren, not infrequently have enjoyed very considerable incomes. No explanation would be expected of the fact that an estate larger probably than any left before his day by any American lawyer, was distributed by the will of James C. Carter, leader of the bar, lover of his country and bene factor of his fellow man; and no one justly could begrudge the material rec ompense that has attested the value of the professional services of some of the distinguished presidents of the New York City Bar Association, including our brilliant Secretary of State, and the delightful symposiarch before whom the Governor was speaking at our last annual banquet. Not solely by "heaping fees upon fees," but sometimes merely by syste matic economy and prudent investment
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the industrious lawyer of moderate pro fessional income may insure "peace with honor" in his old age for both himself and his family. The meteoric course of the brilliant counsel who despite the continuous receipt of large and merited compensation finally found himself un able to release from attachment the dinner that he was spreading before a Lord Chief Justice, may be contrasted with that of a contemporaneous Judge of the Supreme Court of the same state, whose average annual earnings did not exceed $3,000, but who, nevertheless, was able to crown a career altogether honorable by large bequests for the education of youth in New England and for the advancement of poor blacks in the South. Except in the view of social econo mists professing aversion to private property and to all men of wealth as products of a vicious order, the fortunes of lawyers such as these, being "honestly come by," in the phrase of Mr. Lowell, will not be regarded as "sordid, base or belittling." Their right to live upon terms of self-respect in the sphere of their activities will not be denied. But the lawyer who chooses or who pursues his profession primarily, or even principally, as a money-getter, falls into twofold error. First, he selects for his purpose an inferior instrument, for, as already observed, in money-making, as in the opportunities for money-making, the lawyer lags behind the trader of equal ability, and second, he compro mises his own tone, and correspondingly the standing of his profession, which will be privileged so long, and only so long, as it preserves its distinction as a learned profession. The attorney who shares or who competes with his client in trading adventures consents that such actions and such methods be estimated in the terms of the adventure. As was observed by
