by John Marshall Harlan

“ The remaining provisions of the decree prohibit the Brotherhood from sharing in legal fees or recoveries, and prohibit the members from accepting compensation for solicitation of business for a lawyer. These provisions are entirely appropriate to remove any temptation for the representatives of the Brotherhood to overbear the injured man's choice of legal representation. They prohibit conduct which has long been considered unethical, and which in no significant way advances the interests that the Court's prior decisions in this field sought to protect. ”

“ I agree that, in light of this Court's recent decisions, one portion of the Michigan decree-that prohibiting the union from controlling the fees charged by attorneys-cannot stand. In United Mine Workers of America, Dist. 12 v. Illinois Bar Assn., 389 U.S. 217, 88 S.Ct. 353, 19 L.Ed.2d 426 (1967) , the Court held that as a matter of federal constitutional law a labor union is entitled to engage an attorney to represent its members in matters of collective interest, free of direct financial charge to them. ”

“ The second provision of the decree, prohibiting the Brotherhood from furnishing attorneys with information about accidents and the names and addresses of injured workers, orders it to refrain from conduct that it averred but did not prove had been terminated. Nothing in our prior decisions approves the solicitation of business by lawyers except insofar as the solicitation may be correlative to the rights of the clients. ”

“ Regional counsel have also agreed to and do pay all court costs, investigation costs, costs of doctors' examinations, expert witness fees, transcript costs and the cost of printing briefs on appeal. They also pay the total cost of operating the legal aid department of the union (including the department's ratable share of the expenses of the Brotherhood's conventions) . All expenses of the legal aid department are apportioned among the sixteen regional counsel in the ratio that their respective gross fees bear to the total gross recoveries throughout the country. ”

“ The Cleveland office serves as a clearing house which receives reports from all Brotherhood Lodges of instances in which members have been injured or killed in railroad accidents. It notifies the appropriate regional investigator and regional counsel of all accidents. ”

“ As petitioner admits, while it is not generally improper for an attorney to make advances to clients, it is considered improper for him to use the fact that he makes them as a drawing card in an effort to secure professional employment. ”

“ See Bodle, Group Legal Services: The Case for BRT, 12 U.C.L.A.L.Rev. 306, 307 317 (1965) ; Note, 50 Cornell L.Q. 344 (1965) . The most significant point in this history, for present purposes, came in the late 1950's. ”