A resolution provides for the settlement of disputes between barristers and solicitors by their entering into an agreement to leave the questions to arbitration, the board to be composed of the chairman of the General Council of the Bar (or some member of that Council to be named by him) and the President of the Incorporated Law Society (or some member thereof to be selected by him). An. St. 1897-1898, p. 9.
The following is a curious resolution:
"Barrister Recommending another Barrister as his Leader or Junior: A barrister ought not to recommend another as his leader or junior. And such questions as, who is the best man for a witness action in such a court? Which leader is persona grata in such a court? Do you get on all right with X—as your leader? are improper questions and should not be answered." An. St. 1902-1903, p. 3.
Illustrative of this ruling was a recent investigation of the charge that a barrister, about to leave town, had recommended another barrister to a solicitor—the objections being that such an act would not only violate the etiquette which forbids any barrister to laud or decry another barrister to a solicitor, but also that it might savor of co-operation in the nature of a partnership which would never be tolerated. The defence was successful, however, in showing that they were old Eton schoolmates and the solicitor knew them equally well.
The above extracts show how broad in scope and minute in detail are these authoritative rulings on every phase of professional life and daily practice in England. Many of them would be totally inapplicable to American conditions, and, beyond affording a glimpse of peculiar customs and an elaborate etiquette, possess little value here. They do, however, show that the experience of the best Bar in the world justifies the existence of such a body ready to declare the standards of professional propriety.
It should not be inferred that in England there is no lapse from such standards. It requires some diligence to discover individual shortcomings, but inquiry will develop that even "ambulance chasing" is not unknown—although greatly reprehended and despised. If the American observer, on watching the trial of an action, perhaps against an omnibus company for personal injuries, will cautiously comment upon the array of solicitors and counsel representing a plaintiff apparently not possessed of a sixpence, and express wonder that he is able to afford it, the information will be forthcoming that some solicitor's clerk was probably in a neighboring "pooblic" and, hearing of an accident, had followed the injured man, perhaps to the hospital, and got the case for his master, whose remuneration would depend upon the result. Pressing the inquiry further as to whether the solicitor advances the barrister's fees, it will reluctantly be admitted that some barristers have relations with solicitors that should not be looked into too closely—in other words that their fees are contingent. But it will also be added that they are taking great risks of exposure.
Any one who has sat on a Bar Committee, or on a Committee of Censors, in America must have been struck by the frequent instances where practitioners have fallen into error from sheer ignorance, due to inexperience or to the fact that they had not been born and bred to the best traditions. This is especially true in these days when law schools are grinding out members of the Bar who have had no real professional preceptors. As disbarment or suspension is too severe a penalty, such lapses pass unreproved and the standards sink, a result much more deplorable than the failure of individual discipline. Many a young lawyer would be induced to mend his ways if privately and fraternally informed of professional disapproval and some would be glad to seek the judgment of such a body if it could be had without exposing names or particulars.
In this way, too, a body of rulings on the professional proprieties applicable to American conditions would be steadily forced upon the attention of the whole profession, instead of being locked in the breasts of the more reputable members to govern merely their own conduct.