The Law and the Poor

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

Much depends of course on the spirit in which this is worked, but it only refers to the High Court—which is not, speaking generally, the poor man’s Court—and it seems unlikely on the face of it that a scheme of this kind, with no one in particular to look after it and advertise its existence, will do away with the undesirable activity of the speculative solicitor. One wishes it well, but except perhaps in relation to divorce cases it does not appear on paper to be of great practical use.

The fact is that it is not a very hopeful thing to go to lawyers and committees of lawyers for reforms unless you have the driving power of the business man behind them. Nothing was to be more disastrous according to legal prophecy than the institution of the Public Trustee. No reform has done more to mitigate domestic worries and anxiety than this beneficent institution. Lawyers and laymen nowadays concur in casting their troubles upon him and sheltering themselves and their clients beneath his protecting wing. If we are ever to have a proper system of legal advice for the poor it will, I think, have to be made an official department with a business head of affairs and attached lawyers. It might perhaps be added to the duties of Labour Exchanges, but in any case it should be a department of the Board of Trade, and it should have branches throughout the country and power to help the poor in all the Courts of the country. A device for suing in forma pauperis working only in London, such as is set up by the new rules, cannot be of much avail in tackling the problem of placing legal advice and assistance at the call of the poor.

I wish some experiments of a voluntary nature could be made of a more extended character than the poor man’s lawyer societies that are attached to University settlements, and do good work in advising the poor. It is really in Court that a poor man wants assistance. I often think that a poor man or woman coming into a Court for the first time is like the average middle-class Englishman when he finds himself on Calais Pier without a word of French speech at his command and entire ignorance of the ways of the douane. How he clings to a friendly interpreter with a gold band round his hat. How extravagantly he rewards him when he and all his luggage are at length safely in the train.

And why should not we encourage an amateur legal interpreter in our County Courts just as we welcome missionaries in our police Courts. I should like to see practising in each Court an official friend of the poor, ready to state the case of a poor man or woman who sought his assistance. There is an existing section of the County Courts Act allowing a friend to appear for anyone by leave of the judge if he does not do it for fee or reward, and on that foundation something might be built.

I remember a clergyman, Father Gething, appearing for an old army pensioner against an insurance society with complicated rules, and asking to be allowed to address me, and conduct the old man’s case. Sir William Cobbett, not having in his mind for the moment the section I refer to, objected. I asked Father Gething whether he was going to recover any “fee or reward” for acting in the case.

“Certainly not,” replied the reverend gentleman.

“But perhaps,” I continued—somewhat mischievously—“Sir William is going to contend that the word ‘reward’ in the statute means not only reward in this world, but the next.”

Sir William smiled and shook his head at me in dignified reproof. He was not going to argue this, and with his very good will and assistance the clergyman conducted the case, and in the end secured a victory.

In the Army Courts-Martial a prisoner is always allowed a friend to advise him and to take a limited part in the proceedings, and I cannot help thinking that long before the poor man has his panel lawyer voluntary charity will be allowed to supply him with a “friend,” who shall be trained in the law, but ready to give his services to the poor without fee or reward.

Many will think that the suggestions that I have sketched out of assistance to poor people are chimerical and that in any case they are likely to be costly and that the grievance, such as it is, is not worth the money to be spent on the remedy. At one time I seem to be calling out for no lawyers and here I am demanding more lawyers. The inconsistency is only apparent. In all legal reforms I place in the forefront conciliation. I want to see the French “preliminary of conciliation” applied without delay to all small cases and I want the judge of the County Court to be clothed with the duty of the French juge de paix, whose business it is, in the first instance, to bring the parties together and get them to shake hands. Only when that fails, or in those cases where litigation is essential and necessary to the proper determination of a real dispute, should I ask the State to assign counsel and solicitor to the poor. If a poor man has an honest suit with a rich man it should be a point of honour with the Courts to see that he is not at a disadvantage in their procedure.