I have come to regard many of the things about which we complain as symptoms of an underlying weakness in the position of the profession itself, and in its method of work, rather than as causes of weakness. If our associations, by and large, are inanimate, incoherent and unrepresentative, if it be true that our neighbors prefer to trust bankers rather than lawyers to settle their estates, if law makers are taking judicial functions away from lawyer-dominated courts and turning them over to lay tribunals, if misconduct by a few shysters can bring a whole profession into public contempt, should we not look deeper to see what keeps us from effective organization, what weakness makes us subject to invasion, why public opinion judges all lawyers by the worst instead of by the best?
Publication Date
December 27, 1934
Citation
18 Journal of the American Judicature Society_ 70-75 (Oct. 1934), 40 Case & Comment 4-6 (Winter 1934-35) (excerpts), Mass. L.Q., following p. 47 (Feb. 1935) (address before the National Conference of Bar Association Delegates, Milwaukee, WI, Aug. 27, 1934).
Collections
I have come to regard many of the things about which we complain as symptoms of an underlying weakness in the position of the profession itself, and in its method of work, rather than as causes of weakness. If our associations, by and large, are inanimate, incoherent and unrepresentative, if it be true that our neighbors prefer to trust bankers rather than lawyers to settle their estates, if law makers are taking judicial functions away from lawyer-dominated courts and turning them over to lay tribunals, if misconduct by a few shysters can bring a whole profession into public contempt, should we not look deeper to see what keeps us from effective organization, what weakness makes us subject to invasion, why public opinion judges all lawyers by the worst instead of by the best?
