48
The Green Bag
the late Charles O'Conor, even the amount of the fee may tend to indicate the character of the attorney's activi ties, whether as professional or as merely a participation in the undertaking. The lawyer outclassed by the merchant in the competition for great riches will win only patronizing condescension. But if he shall retain and maintain his tradi tional familiarity with the science of the law, entering into and shaping the affairs of even the most resourceful laymen, he will command and will receive from the public as well as from his fellows re spectful consideration and esteem. Ad verse popular criticism is not easily sus tained against a lawyer who enjoys the unqualified approval of his professional brethren; and this will not be withheld from the conscientious, capable counsel, merely because, as in the case of Alex ander Hamilton, "his earnings are very large indeed compared with the rewards of his own day." To the mere money-seeking lawyer indeed the love of money will prove the root of all evil, and though, as conceded by the Governor, those conspicuous for their attainment of a competence may be deemed fortunate, they will be most fortunate if their acquisitions have been consistent with good repute for char acter and learning, and with a record of service to the state, such as has given distinction to the names of our brethren Hamilton and Marcy and Seward and Tilden and Cleveland and Carter and Choate and Root. Thus far probably the argument ac cords with the general understanding, but it leads to a proposition which pro vokes dispute always, and often denial, namely that in the practice of his pro fession, upon which his living depends, the lawyer is entitled to accept employ ment for the honest presentation of any
claim, or of any defense which it is proper for a court to hear and determine, and in behalf of his client to adopt any expedient not in itself conflicting with moral principle or the law of the land. In a sense this proposition may seem to have been challenged by the Gov ernor's declaration that the bar was not assembled "to take pride in the cunning that has been shown in the course of the conduct of professional work," and in the particular intendment of his obser vation the challenge would be well founded. Even the selfish and sordid pursuit of wealth may be less degrading to the lawyer than his habitual resort to cunning in the conduct of professional work, that is, in work done by him directly for the advantage of his client and only indirectly for his own profit. Though such service includes an ele ment of altruism, this could not offset the harm that would result alike to the bar and to the public, if generally we were to come to tolerate cunning as a substitute for learning or for sagacity. That the bar willingly adopts and pos sibly prefers sharp practice, is a popular belief, encouraged persistently by writers of fiction, as well as by journalists and by moralists, sometimes within the pro fession. Out of thirty-five lawyers portrayed by Charles Dickens only one is outlined for respect, though in passing it may be noted that that one has been identified as the one lawyer with whom the novel ist had close personal acquaintance. The others he held up for ridicule, and generally for distrust. He personified the "Bar" as a busy bee that has to get verdicts against evidence, and by setting snares for the gentlemen of the jury. Anthony Trollope by way of reproach wrote that "no amount of eloquence will make an English lawyer think that loyalty to truth should come before
