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Compulsory Incorporation of the Bar from the Country Lawyer’s Viewpoint

The proposed compulsory incorporation of the bar has awakened little interest in the country lawyer and his voice has been unheard in the debate that preceded and followed the introduction of the measure. As the conditions under which I practice are more rural than urban, I approach this discussion from the viewpoint of the country lawyer.

Advocacy as a Specialized Career

Proposals of higher educational qualifications for admission to the bar bring out a sharp divergence of opinion between the metropolitan bar and sections of the upstate bar. The country lawyer does not appreciate the gravity of the evils that have developed in city practice, and the city bar cannot understand the rural lawyer's resistance to higher standards.

Functions of the Trust Company in the Field of Law

What has happened to those whom Woodrow Wilson called the "dwindling body of general practitioners, who used to be our statesmen"? A generation ago a lawyer was identified with the family fortunes, counseled the indiscreet youth, approved title to the new home that came with manhood, drew the articles of co-partnership or incorporation when a shop or store was acquired, collected the business accounts, drew the Will, handled settlement of the estate and then started over the same road with another generation.

The Future of the Bar

Many thoughtful men are asking whether the bar is like the Irishman's hunting dog whose "future was all in the past." In pioneer American society, three groups claimed to be "learned professions" and proved the claim by default. They were the preachers, the doctors and the lawyers.

Trial Practice in Accident Litigation

Of the many criticisms which the lay world aims at the legal profession, the most justifiable is that great uncertainty exists both in the law which we apply and in the results which attend our procedure. None may deny that charge; we can differ only as to how much of the uncertainty is inherent and unavoidable and how much we contribute by our philosophy and practice.

An Organized American Bar

Critical re-examination of the structure of the American Bar Association is a manifestation of the bar's anxiety for its collective welfare. The same sense of insecurity as to the profession's future has initiated in every state movements to strengthen bar associations either by incorporation or by federation of existing voluntary bodies. Bar association speeches drop the old tone of self approval and take on a tone of apprehension and uneasiness.

A Lawyer Looks At Politics

The two great parties which have shared responsibility for governing the American people during their romantic rise to world power, are about to meet in Convention. Each will frame a platform and name a leader and appeal to be voted into power. The two Conventions form a study in contrasts.

An Unappreciated Heritage

[I]f a high school course has not taught us to place a higher than commercial estimate upon the works of nature, the vital quality of our education is wanting. [I]t is for us to rescue nature’s endowment from the hand of the despoiler and deliver her beauty from the blight of avarice. ...To us in this garden spot of new America is given a little city, also built upon hills and set gem-like within the seven encircling ends of a silver stream. Let it be one of the responsible and abiding tasks of our lives to make this loved home of our youth year by year more worthy of the setting which has been so cunningly fashioned by Nature’s matchless handicraft.

What Price “Due Process”

The ease with which the foreign corporation is "doing business" within our state for the purpose of trade, and at the same time manages not to be doing business so as to be sued here, is attested by the number of cases in which service of process is nullified. How many cases are abandoned by counsel before suit can only be guessed at.