Between the Norman Conquest and Edward the First the trade guilds had been organized; and meanwhile the inns of court, the hostelries and localities in which the students of English law gathered, had been made the basis of societies at least as restricted as the craft guilds. fessor Maitland says:

Pro

"The lawyers like other men, had grouped themselves in guilds, or guildlike Fellowships. The fellowship acquired property; it was not technically incorporate, but made use of the thoroughly English machinery of a trust. Behind a hedge of trustees it lived an autonomous life, unhampered by charters or statutes."***"The craft guild regulated apprenticeship; it would protect the public against incompetent artificers, and its own members against unfair competition. So the fellowship of lawyers. In course of time a lengthy and laborious course of education of the medieval sort had been devised. He who had pursued it to its end received a call to the bar of his inn. This call was in effect a degree. Like the doctor or master of a university, the full blown barrister was competent to teach others, and was expected to read lectures to students. But further, in a manner that is still very dark, these societies had succeeded in making their degrees the only steps that led to practice in the King's Courts." (1)

And, gentlemen, the inns of court have the exclusive privilege of calling to the bar in England today.

At the last meeting of this Association, I took occasion to say in the report of the Central Council, that the problem with the Bar in Alabama and all over the United States today, is economic; and that the reason why we can't maintain the ideals of the Bar and their standard of ethics on a higher plane is an economic reason. There are too many lawyers in Alabama and everywhere in the United States, and there is no limitation at present to their increase. And so long as no limitation is placed

(1) F. W. Waitland in IX Ency. Britt. 11th ed. p. 603.

upon them, you cannot hope to maintain their standards of practice at any higher level than at present. In England, the number of barristers is limited-at least to their own societies; for there is no way to get into the bar except through the law societies. In France and Germany as was shown in our last year's report, their number is limited in fact. Why should we expect to realize the standard of European barristers without pursuing a process of limitation and elimination here similar to theirs?

In 1776 Adam Smith published to the world that epoch making essay on social statics which he called "The Wealth of Nations." His theory of economics was built upon the conception that society is organized upon the personal interest of the individuals making it up; that division of labor is traceable to it, and that all organization was developed from the same source. By personal interest, he meant intelligent selfishness; and while Buckle criticized him for positing the doctrine so broadly, and justly points out that many of the achievements of civilization are founded upon altruism alone, yet neither Buckle nor any later philosopher denies that personal interest is the strongest incentive to most of the associations of mankind. Nor should it be otherwise if we believe in a society based upon individualism rather than socialism as affording the greatest good to the greatest numbers. John Austin has applied it to the field of jurisprudence and positive law by his accurate demonstration of the meaning of the test rule of general utility. Yet the fundamental conception of the present Codes of Ethics of the American Bar is entirely antagonistic to individual self-interest. Our Codes of Ethics assume the survival of the duties of the lawyers of early Rome, without the survival of the Roman lawyer's privilege; which alone rendered the duties possible. And with the reckless disregard of British institutions attendant upon the period of the American Revolution, our fathers opened wide the gates of the American Bar without any of the common sense

limitations which history built up around the profession of a barrister in England.

The English have always been an exceptionally common sense people. As soon as the battle between the State and the Church of Rome, beginning with Henry II, led to the clergy being prohibited by the Pope from studying the English Common Law, English lawyers grew up who soon took possession of the courts; and necessitated the selection of the judges exclusively from the common law bar. British common sense also directed the organization of students of the common law into segregated groups apart from the popish environs of the universities.

As a defense against inroads from the universities and the church, it became the rule, and later a fetish with the English lawyers, to know nothing about the learning of the law of Rome. As a defense against the inroads of the masses the law student societies clustered in the inns of court stipulated courses of study for admission to the bar, and by creating an expensive standard of living at the inns, substantially restricted their membership to the wealthy nobility. As a result of exclusiveness came prerogative; and by exclusiveness and prerogative there naturally arose great pride in the profession.

Nor have the British monarchs been unmindful of their duty to assist in maintaining the prestige of the bar. The most frequently traversed path to a peerage has been through success at the bar. Mr. John Maxcy Zane in his "Five Ages of the Bar" points out that:

"While great soldiers are represented in the House of Lords by the Dukes of Marlborough and Wellington, the Marquis of Anglesey, Viscounts Hardinge, Wolseley and Kitchener, and Lords Napier of Magdala and Raglan, while great admirals are represented by Earl Nelson, the Earl of Effingham and Earl Howe, Viscounts Exmouth, St. Vincent, Bridport, and Torrington and Lords Rodney and Vernon, the representatives of lawyers almost fill the benches of the lords."

To inculcate in the American Bar this pride in their profession, to elevate their standards of practice and foster their efforts to attain their ideal as still represented in their Codes of Ethics, American law and American society does nothing. We are not even allowed to limit admission to our ranks or to have more than any other citizen's influence in selecting from our number those who are to preside over us as judges in the performance of our historic duty of awarding justice to litigants.

Our dignity, if we have any, must be an individual attainment, and is generally based upon the amount of money we may have accumulated in the practice.

Consider on the one hand the authority of the English Inns of Court and the rows of lawyers in the British House of Lords, and then consider on the other hand the following advertisement which I clipped from the New York Times of Sept. 27, 1915:

WANTED HONEST YOUNG LAWYER TO HAN

DLE LAWSUIT.

Apply in own handwriting, giving telephone number of office and residence. When appointed the lawyer will be required to give a bond for faithful performance of his duties. Incompetent lawyers will kindly not answer this advertisement. This legal department has no time to waste on triflers. Address JACQUES LEBAUDY; POST OFFICE Box 1655, New York City.

Therefore to our corporation manager critics of the American Bar, are we not justified in saying, "You are largely responsible for the standards and methods of practice tolerated of American lawyers? You are responsible by reason of the type of lawyers which, we all know, you sometimes employ; you are responsible on account of what you often employ them and exact of them to do. You know very well that you frequently demand of them to win your causes rather than to establish justice, and that they do your bidding because if they decline to do so you will discharge them and throw them without a

practice upon the world. Then not content with what you have accomplished through some of your own employees you harangue against the profession because they do not, unaided by you, put into the penitentiary others of their number who may have gotten past your defenses and rifled your purse."

To those operatives having honest claims against the corporations, we may say, "You are largely responsible for the tolerated ethics of the Bar, if having intelligence enough to pick from among your number those you believe capable of making faithful heads of your organizations, you give your law suits to runners who bid for your employment."

To merchants and bankers who criticize our profession, we may say: "How can you expect us to be any better than you, when you provide us with no means to prevent the sharp practitioner from entering our ranks, when you send your claims and suits to those of us who debase ourselves to the point of asking you for them, and when caught in doubtful financial situations you carefully pick out those lawyers as your counsel whom you believe rascally enough to get you out of your embarrassment? You also are responsible for the present low standard of the American Bar."

To the university presidents and professors, we may say, "You also are responsible for the low standards of the American Bar by reason of your straining every nerve to increase the attendance upon your law schools, turning out hundreds of new lawyers each year to whom there is no hope for years, if ever, of making an honest, competent living at the profession."

And finally to the American Public we say, "You have a Bar whose standards of practice are as high as you deserve, and we fear, as high as you desire."

But we of the Bar itself, who have given our lives to it, although in some instances no doubt inadvisedly, we want the standards of our profession raised above what