Faculty of Advocates

“ It is then a well-known fact that our universities are governed by boards of trustees or regents, with complete legal authority over the measures proposed by the faculty, over the status of the professors individually and collectively, and always indirectly, usually directly, over educational policies, over the larger complex issues that determine the spirit and the conditions of university advance, and naturally over the ways and means contributory to the realization of all this. In many institutions no act of the faculty is valid unless confirmed or reviewed by the board. ”

“ The fact is that the individual college professor, however responsible in study or class-room, has as a rule little sense of the dignity and responsibility of his office as a member of the faculty. And it is also true that many men are admitted to our faculties who, by reason of inexperience and immaturity, or of constitutional lack of culture and self-respect, should not be entrusted with the office. ”

“ Federal judges should not be ersatz deans or educators. In this regard, we trust that the University will serve its own interests as well as those of its professors in pursuit of academic freedom. University officials are undoubtedly aware that quality faculty members will be hard to attract and retain if they are to be shackled in much of what they do. ”

“ As the means requisite for the proper illustration of these subjects are often beyond the resources of individuals, it was thought by the board, that by constituting a faculty of professors, and affording them such facilities in the prosecution of their several courses of instruction as might be within the power of the university, they would be contributing towards the public good, and at the same time elevating the character of the institution over which they presided. ”

“ Hence it may be a measure of policy with them, to introduce the student, in the first place, to the study of political law, in the hope of making on his raw and unpractised mind, such an impression, as may secure his approbation of the existing order of things. The faculty of investigating legal questions, and forming legal opinions, may almost be regarded as an acquired faculty; so that, in the earlier part of his researches, the student necessarily acquiesces in the doctrines which are pronounced ex cathedra by his teacher. ”

“ The Board of Advisors shall recommend alternative sources of faculty talent, particularly in the fields of science and technology, including faculty exchanges and referrals from other institutions of higher education, private sector retirees, Federal employees and retirees, and emeritus faculty members at other institutions of higher education. ”

“ Faculties should elect their own officers. No change in the curriculum or assignments, no subdivision of chairs or creation of new ones should be made except upon recommendation of a committee for each faculty, consisting of trustees appointed by the board and of professors elected by the faculty concerned. ”

“ The National Board of Trial Advocacy, a national certification program that provides recognition for superior achievement in trial advocacy, uses a highly-structured certification process in addition to a formal examination to select its members. ”

“ Serious misdemeanors are of course in the jurisdiction of the president of the college and the faculty. One very important college duty, the proctoring of examinations, which would seem to be an entirely legitimate function of the Student Government Association, the students themselves have not as yet been willing to assume. ”

“ As President Schurman says in his last annual report, "A faculty will not be dominated or over-ridden which justly asserts itself." It must always be remembered that, with the exception of the president, the only persons who are with the college all the time, and whose interests are continuously identified with its welfare, are the faculty. And they are the professional experts. Consciously or unconsciously, positively or negatively, they are bound, therefore, to have a large influence upon its policy. ”

“ By this college method, every professor is made the honorable and independent controller of his own department, responsible to no one but the corporation or trustees. By this method, each teacher having in charge only one or two classes, and a single department, is able to devote much time to self-improvement and the advancement of his specialty.
Endowments also render the college permanent in its course of instruction and in retaining a permanent faculty, which can never be the case in schools that must change with every changing principal. ”

“ That our leading Advocates will not relish this doctrine, I know. In theory, they may approve—but in practice, when they and their interest, and their professional pride are once engaged, they will never yield. ”

“ We come to the regular faculty of the university, the Professores Ordinarii. They enjoy the fullest privileges, are appointed for life, and receive beside the tuition-fees regular incomes. They may be elected to the Academic Senate and to the Rectorship, the Rector or Chancellor not being appointed for life, but changing yearly,—the various faculties being represented in turn. ”

“ Wherever mere experience and attainments are sufficient—wherever the qualities required in a professional adviser may possibly be united in a single well-selected individual (as in the case, for example, of a law officer) , one such person for general purposes, and a staff of clerks to supply knowledge of details, meet the demands of the case. ”

“ In the generality of our institutions, the appointing power is vested in a board of trustees, who have no controlling body placed over them. In almost all, however, we find from the Journal of the Convention—that the faculty are consulted—"that" according to Dr. Bates, "experience had proved the wisdom of consulting the faculty on any contemplated appointment of a professor; and that, in fact, though not professedly, yet in effect, professors are appointed by the instructers or faculty,—and thus by securing their good will towards the new incumbent, amity was enforced." ”

“ Every member of the faculty should be a member of some official faculty committee, each thus being engaged in helping to work out the official policies of the institution. On the latter days of this week of meetings there should be regular meetings of the full faculty, every man present or accounted for, at which the constructive program of the university year shall be thoroughly considered. ”

“ If any of the said Ministers desire to become Advocates or to take the degree of Doctor of Laws, we would have it understood that the three years of study prescribed by our Proclamations, shall be dispensed with in their case, and after having been submitted to examination in the usual way, and being judged competent, they may be received as Doctors upon paying only half the fees that are usually collected on such occasions in each University. ”

“ The fixed salaries of the deans and professors of faculties, and those of the provosts, inspectors of studies, and professors in the Royal colleges are not to be altered.
86. The deans and professors of the faculties that will be continued, the provosts and doctors of faculty of the district colleges at present in office, are to retain the same rights and privileges, and will be subject to the same regulations of repeal, as if they had been appointed in pursuance of the present decree. ”

“ After the College of Advocates was incorporated and had established itself in Doctors’ Commons, the archbishop’s court of appeal, as well as his prerogative court, were usually held in the hall of the College of Advocates, but after the destruction of the buildings of the college, the court of appeal held its sittings, for the most part, in Westminster Hall. ”

“ They, constituting the University, are the "hope of the State in the direction of its practical affairs; in teaching the lawyer the better standards of his profession, his duty to place character above money making; in teaching the legislator the philosophy of legislation, and that the constructive forces of legislation carefully considered should precede every effort to change an existing status ”

“ Besides the briefless lawyers who sweep this hall with their gowns, and speak of the leading advocates by their Christian names, as fine gentlemen address each other, to produce the impression that they are of the aristocracy of the law, patient youths are often to be seen, hangers-on of the attorneys, waiting, waiting, in hope of a case put down for the end of the day, which they may be so lucky as to be called to plead if the advocates retained for the earlier cases should not come out in time. ”

“ For the faculty he served an office in the disciplinary line not easily described,—call it adviser, mediator, mitigator, or demonstrator of applied common sense. He had an idea that parents sent their boys to college to be made to stay there and per [Pg 173] form their duties and work out their best, rather than to be sent away when any little thing went wrong with them. ”

“ Most earnestly we invite and call upon all Bachelors of Law to ponder well upon the duties of an Advocate. Entitled as the Advocate is to a fair remuneration for Duties of an Advocate.his services, he should never let the acquisition of wealth be the main end or object of his actions. He should seek to compose and to restrain, not to foment and foster, the evil passions of those who consult him. His first duty to his client is, if possible, to save him from litigation. ”

“ The great object of a Faculty of Law is to teach those who aspire to take part in public life jurisprudence, not as the art of jurisdiction, but in its connection with moral and social sciences, in its philosophical and historical aspect. In this relation, besides a Chair of PubHc Law, Chairs of Philosophy of Law, of Political Economy, of Commercial and of International Law, are necessary. They presuppose, of course, that the student has in the Faculty of Arts been well trained in the method of historical inquiry from a sociological point of view, and has had a sound general education. ”

“ An advocate is as one of our attorneys, at least in the general, who pleads according to law and justice for one or other that is in trouble by reason of some miscarriage, or of the naughty temper of some that are about him, who trouble and vex, and labour to bring him into danger of the law. This is the nature of this office, as I said, on earth; and this is the office that Christ executeth in heaven. Wherefore he saith, “If any man sin, we have an Advocate”; one to stand up for him, and to plead for his deliverance before the bar of God. ”

“ Measures shall be taken by law to promote the professionalism of judges, and the universities shall cooperate to this end, organizing their corresponding law schools' pensa to specialized studies in judicial practice. ”

“ You have pledged yourselves faithfully and carefully to fulfil the duties of your profession, on all occasions to maintain its purity and reputation, and never to deviate from the straight path of its honourable exercise by making your knowledge subservient to unworthy ends. Act out this promise, and the University will have no reason but to rejoice in any success you may attain. It is well known that peculiar temptations assail a Lawyer, and he must be a man of strong moral purpose and principle, who can put those temptations away from him. ”

“ Even now, though the system is, so to speak, in its infancy, graduates judge of universities not so much by the standing of the professors or by the grade of instruction offered, as by the value of the fellowships. Students about to graduate have been known to ask their professors what inducement the college offers them to remain—more than that, have been candidates for appointment at more than one institution. ”

“ Doubtless there are grave practical objections to the appointment of persons outside of your body and not directly interested in the welfare of the university; but might it not be well if there were an understanding that your academic staff should be officially represented on the board, perhaps even the heads of one or two independent learned bodies, so that academic opinion and the views of the outside world might have a certain influence in that most important matter, the appointment of your professors? ”

“ In dwelling on the advantages of the Law School as a seat of legal education, the Committee therefore rank side by side with the lectures and exercises of the professors the profitable opportunities afforded by the library and the fellowship of persons engaged in the same pursuits, all echoing to the heart of the pupil, as from the genius of the place, constant words of succor, encouragement, and hope. ”

“ The candidate Advocates obtain a fiat from the archbishop of Canterbury, and are admitted by the judge to practise. In Ireland they do not form a college: they must be Doctors of Law, but generally practise in the common law or equity courts, besides. They are admitted to practise by the judge of the Prerogative Court. The pleaders in the supreme courts in Scotland, and generally throughout Europe, are called Advocates. The institution of the order is very ancient. ”

“ Those who contend for such indulgence argue that the profession is an instrument for the administration of justice: he is to do all he can for his client: the application of laws is a matter of great complexity and difficulty: that the right administration of them in doubtful cases is best provided for if the arguments on each side are urged with the utmost force. The advocate is not the judge. ”