The Lawyer of Fifty Years Ago to the court that Mr. C. is engaged in the trial of another case, which has come in in the meantime, and asks for a further postponement. Of course Mr. C. cannot be in two courts at the same time. It is not his fault that these causes conflict, and the witnesses, after having again remained in court for several hours expecting to have the case disposed of, are again discharged. When the next opportunity to try the merchant's case is presented, Mr. C. is disengaged and announces himself ready for trial; but in the meantime another case in which his own counsel is em ployed has come on to trial, so that there has to be another postponement on that account. Again the witnesses who have been on hand at great inconvenience to themselves are discharged until further notice. There is hardly any limit to the number of times something like this may occur in any case under our system, and besides its frequency there is no form of delay which so disgusts and enrages the litigant and brings the administration of the law and legal profession itself into such contempt. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the injury to the reputation of the bar among business men which results from these causes. From this injury the English bar is absolutely exempt. There is still another class of delays incident to our American system. Sup pose that when a case is about to be reached for trial counsel on one side or the other, or it may be counsel on both sides, have engagements of a business nature out of court. Counsel for the plaintiff goes to the counsel for the defen dant and says, "If you force me to try this case tomorrow, I will lose an oppor tunity to make a large fee." Counsel for the defendant, realizing that he may have occasion in the future to ask simi
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lar indulgence, agrees to the postpone ment. Under our system, delays from this cause are almost inevitable, although not infrequently they are not justifiable on ethical grounds, clients not knowing anything about them. The only pro tection which the profession can have against injury such as this, is that which would be afforded by a system under which the courts would not allow the trial of causes to be postponed on any such grounds. But in order to render such a system of court rules possible or practicable, it is absolutely essential that there should be a body of lawyers specially trained in the trial of causes, skilled in the art of quickly acquiring a knowledge and understanding of the case from a study of the brief and conference with the law yer who prepared it, and who have not and are not allowed to have business engagements which would conflict with their duties as advocate, because they are not permitted at law or by the rul es of the court to invade the province of the solicitor or business lawyer. In other words, we have got to develop a system under which the profession will — grad ually, of course — be divided into two classes, the business lawyer and the trial lawyer, with statutes, or better rules of court prescribing the functions of each class, leaving every lawyer free to enroll himself in the class he prefers, but abso lutely prohibiting a member of one class from undertaking any of the duties of the other. It may be said that this would be adopting the English system, and the American lawyer instinctively shrinks from that suggestion. But while the division of the profession into two classes under the designation of solicitors and barristers, or any other designation, may be regarded as the distinguishing feature of the English system, it by no
