A Philadelphia Lawyer in the London Courts

by Thomas Leaming

The fees of common law men, while larger, are equally a matter of guess-work. One hears of the large earnings of Judah P. Benjamin a generation ago, and R. Barry O'Brien, in his life of Sir Charles Russell, quotes from his fee book yearly showing that the year he was called to the Bar he took only £117, while thirty-five years later—in 1894—just before he was elevated to the bench, his fees for the year were £22,517. For the ten years preceding he had averaged £16,842, and, for the ten years before that, £10,903. The biographer of Sir Frank Lockwood, a successful barrister, relates that he earned £120 his first year and that this increased to £2,000 in his eighth year, but he was glad to accept during his twenty-second year the Solicitor Generalship, paying about £10,000. The Attorney General, who, although his office is a political one, is generally a leading barrister, receives a salary of £7,000 and his fees are about £6,000 more.

The clerk of a one time high judicial officer now dead, is authority for the statement that the year before he went upon the bench his fees aggregated 30,000 guineas. It seems to be the general opinion of those well informed that the most distinguished leader may, at the height of his career, take 20,000 to 25,000 guineas. All such estimates must, however, be received with the greatest reserve, and no one could undertake to vouch for them.

Barristers' fees are, of course, for purely professional services and do not come within the same category as the immense sums one occasionally hears of being received by American lawyers—not, however, as a rule, for real professional services in litigation, but for success in promoting, merging or reorganizing business enterprises. The fees of English barristers are practically all gain, as there are no office expenses worth mentioning. No suit can be brought by a barrister to compel the payment of a fee although the services have been performed, nor is he liable for negligence or incompetence in his professional work.

Partnerships, which are common between solicitors, are unknown to barristers and anything approaching them would be the subject of severe discipline. This is a fundamental law of the profession, never questioned, as to which the rulings of the governing body of the Bar (some of which will be quoted in a later chapter) relate only to the application of the principle to different circumstances. In order to appreciate the abhorrence of partnerships, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact that the great science of the law is to the barrister strictly a profession, having no affinity to a business or a trade. No barrister can have the slightest personal concern in the interests which he advocates, his fee being never contingent, nor is he ever permanently retained by salary or otherwise. He is a purely intellectual ally of the court in the consideration of questions, more or less abstract, as to which he merely supports the view he has undertaken to urge.

Upon the whole, professional rewards do not strike an American as particularly large, remembering that the recipients are at the top of the profession in London, which means the Kingdom.

One can not escape the impression that litigation in England deals with minor matters as compared with that of America. There are no American data for comparison with the admirable judicial statistics of England, but, in listening to the daily routine of the London courts, in the tight little Island with its dense population and well-settled rights, there seems to be a complete absence of those far-reaching litigations which arise in America, involving enormous sums, or conflicting questions concerning a whole continent, with its railroads and rivers extending as avenues of commerce for thousands of miles and with ramifications of trade running into many States, each with its separate sovereignty.

One circumstance rather indicates that the popular estimate of fees is above the truth, and this is the acceptance of judgeships by the most eminent barristers; still, judicial salaries in England are high—£5,000 at the least—not to speak of the compensation of the Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor, which are more.

Solicitors' clerks occasionally haggle and bargain with barristers' clerks in an undignified manner—but of this their masters are supposed to be in ignorance. And it seems that the matter of fees is sometimes abused. In the case of a celebrated barrister, now dead, it is whispered that his clerk would receive a retainer of 500 guineas on behalf of the K. C. who would be missing upon the cause being reached. The clerk would then tell the solicitor's clerk that the K. C. was overcrowded, and he did not believe he could get him into court unless 250 guineas were added to the fee. After grumbling and protesting, the addition would be forthcoming, whereupon the clerk would readily find the K. C. strolling in the Temple Gardens, and fetch him to court. This, however, was not regarded as honest and the story itself is doubted.

In the case of solicitors, the acquirement of a practice is apparently much like establishing a mercantile business. The majority doubtless begin as clerks in existing firms, and, if men of ability, either rise in the firm or form their own associations. They are not hampered by the same considerations of delicacy and etiquette as the barrister, but may seek employment, although, of course, the one guarantee of real success is the honest and efficient handling of affairs with which they may be entrusted.

The profits of a large firm of solicitors are very great. Much of the money, however, is made in the transaction of business which is not of the profession at all, such as the promotion of enterprises, the flotation of companies, just as there is a class of American lawyers pursuing the same lines.