dockets of the Courts in which he appears for the defendants. In either case, the result is the same. When the Court, after calling the case, makes the usual inquiry as to whether the parties are ready for trial, the plaintiff promptly answers in the affirmative, but a young man arises on the other side and states that he is from Mr. "C's" office, and that Mr. C., the counsel for the defendant, is engaged or about to become engaged in the trial of another case in the Court at the other end of the hall, and desires that the trial of this case be postponed until the case which he is now trying, or about to try, shall have been concluded.

In the English Court such an application would not be considered for a moment. The defendant would be told that the rules of practice did not permit the postponement of trials to suit the convenience of counsel, that the defendant must have other counsel ready to take Mr. C's place, or let the trial proceed under the management of the junior. The judge being invariably a lawyer of the highest order and ample experience himself would endeavour to see to it in such cases that the defendant suffered no injustice, even if he had to leave the case to the junior; something which the defendant, however, does not ordinarily do.

But, what happens in the Maryland Court? The application for postponement is granted as a matter of course.

The defendant is entitled to it under the rules of our practice there prevailing. The witnesses who have been in attendance not infrequently for several hours before the case is called, are "discharged until further notice." Mr. C. proceeds with the trial of the cause which has been the cccasion of the postponement. At the close of that trial counsel for our merchant friend endeavor to bring his case on to trial, but find it impossible to do so by reason of the fact that another case in the same Court is on trial. He waits until the conclusion of that case and then announces his readiness to proceed. Thereupon the young man from Mr. C's office arises again, and states to the Court that Mr.

C. is engaged in the trial of another case, which has come in in the meantime, and asks for a further postponement.

Of course, Mr. C. cannot be in two Courts at the same time. It is not his fault that these causes conflict, and the witnesses, after having again remained in Court for several hours, expecting to have the case disposed of, are again discharged.

When the next opportunity to try the merchant's case is presented, Mr. C. is disengaged and announces himself ready for trial; but in the meantime another case in which his own counsel is employed has come on to trial, so that there has to be another postponement on that account. Again the witnesses who have been on hand at great inconvenience to themselves, are discharged until further notice. There is hardly any limit to the number of times something like this may occur in any case under our system, and besides its frequency there is no form of delay which so disgusts and enrages the litigant and brings the administration of the law and the legal profession itself into such contempt.

It is almost impossible to exaggerate the injury to the reputation of the Bar among business men which results from these causes. From this injury the English Bar is absolutely exempt.

There is still another class of delays incident to our American system. Suppose that when a case is about to be reached for trial counsel on one side or the other, or it may be counsel on both sides, have engagements of a business nature out of Court. Counsel for the plaintiff goes to the counsel for the defendant and says, "If you force me to try this case tomorrow, I will lose an opportunity to make a large fee." Counsel for the defendant, realizing that he may have occasion in the future to ask similar indulgence, agrees to the postponement. Under our system, delays from this cause are almost inevitable, although not infrequently they are not justifiable on ethical grounds,

clients not knowing anything about them. The only protection which the profession can have against injury such as this, is that which would be afforded by a system under which the Courts would not allow the trial of causes to be postponed on any such grounds.

But in order to render such a system of Court rules possible or practicable, it is absolutely essential that there should be a body of lawyers specially trained in the trial of causes, skilled in the art of quickly acquiring a knowledge and understanding of the case from a study of the brief and conference with the lawyer who prepared it, and who have not and are not allowed to have business engagements which would conflict with their duties as advocate, because they are not permitted at law or by the rules of the Court to invade the province of the solicitor or business lawyer. In other words, we have got to develop a system under which the profession will gradually, of course-be divided into two classes-the business lawyer, and the trial lawyer, with statutes, or-better-rules of Court prescribing the functions of each class; leaving every lawyer free to enroll himself in the class he prefers, but absolutely prohibiting a member of one class from undertaking any of the duties of the other.

It may be said that this would be adopting the English system; and the American lawyer instinctively shrinks from that suggestion. But, while the division of the profession into two classes under the designaton of solicitors and barristers, or any other designation, may be regarded as the distinguishing feature of the English system, it by no means follows that it would be necessary for us to adopt that system as a whole, with all its ancient rules and restrictions, and in some respects, as it seems to us, absurd etiquette. Much of that would probably not be agreeable, nor even tolerable to an American lawyer.

Neither would it be necessary to have the new system apply to lawyers who are already at the Bar.

Such reforms as this can never be accomplished suddenly or abruptly.

The rule making it compulsory to enroll in one class or the other could be made applicable only to those entering the profession hereafter, leaving each man already at the Bar at liberty to retain all his present privileges until such time, if ever, as he might elect to enroll in one class or the other.

I am persuaded that to this measure must we come at last, if the Bar of this country as a whole is ever to have again the reputation for efficiency as an agency in the administration of justice which once it had.

And there is yet another aspect of this matter which is perhaps equally important from some points of view.

Owing to the enormously increased extent to which the business of the country is now conducted by corporations, and the vast number and wealth of those corporations, as compared with fifty years ago, it constantly happens that the ablest and best men of the profession are employed by the large corporations as their general attorneys or counsel frequently on a salaried basis.

In the course of time a lawyer thus employed becomes so associated in the public mind with that corporation client as to be looked upon as practically a part of it. In fact, these lawyers and it must be borne in mind in the nature of things they are frequently the best lawyers in each State or locality—become identified in the minds of the people with the special interests of their corporation clients. They are looked upon as representatives of these special private interests as distinguished from public interests. They are not looked upon as were the lawyers of fifty years ago as men whose eminent talents are at the service of any or every citizen who may desire to employ them in the protection or enforcement of his rights. No matter how high the character or exalted may be the talents of lawyers of this class, of them it can no longer be truthfully said as a general rule, in the words of the De Tocqueville, already quoted, that "The people do not distrust them because it is well known that they are interested in serving the popular cause," nor

that "The people listen to them without irritation because it does not attribute to them any sinister designs."

Unfortunately, as we know too well, in these days the exact contrary is too often the fact.

The consequence of all this is that a large part of the very flower of the American Bar-great numbers of the very men who by reason of their talents and character would be best qualified to preserve and maintain in the minds of the people the ancient credit and prestige of the profession in the country at large, are to all intents and purposes withdrawn from that great service into the shadow of the private interests of which in the public view, at any rate, they have become a part.

No profession could suffer the eclipse, total or partial, of such lights as these without some dimming of its lustre. We, as lawyers, know that as a matter of fact a lawyer of the right sort may be the general counsel or attorney for the greatest corporation client all his professional life without surrendering his personal independence.

We have had conspicuous illustrations of that fact in Maryland.

But we can not blame the people at large for not being able to realize that such a thing can be. It is a view which can only be understood by those who have been bred in the highest traditions of the law.

It follows also that this class of lawyers is gradually becoming eliminated from the list of those eligible for election or appointment to judicial office. Fifty years ago the fact that a lawyer had been counsel for a corporation no more disqualified him in the popular mind for appointment to the bench than would the fact that he had frequently defended men charged with murder cause him to be considered unfit to sit in the Criminal Court. It is not so now. The leader of the Maryland Bar today has probably never had a superior among all the great lawyers who have contributed to give that Bar a national reputation, the great Pinkney