Law bar

“ It is under the guidance of these Committees that the Inns of Court have gained and maintained their position through the centuries, training the successive generations of barristers in the high traditions of honour and ability characteristic of the English Bar, and imparting to their youthful apprentices at the law, through the social system of ‘keeping terms,’ the unwritten rules of right conduct in the legal profession. ”

“ After a member of an inn of court has kept twelve terms, he may, without being called, obtain permission to practice under the Bar. This class of practitioners are called special pleaders or equity draftsmen (according as they prepare pleadings in the common law or equity courts) , or conveyancers, who prepare deeds. 3 Stewart's Blackst. 26, note. Those who are regularly called, however, may take upon them the causes of all suitors. Such of the barristers as have a patent of precedence, as king's counsel, sit within the Bar, with the serjeants; all others are called utter or outer barristers. ”

“ Much stronger is the case at bar, for the tribunal was composed of officers of the government of the United States. It was created by the land department in pursuance of express authority from the acts of congress. This perjury was not merely a wrong against that tribunal or a violation of its rules or requirements; the tribunal and the contest only furnished the opportunity and the occasion for the crime, which was a crime defined in and denounced by the statute. ”

“ Its maintenance would tend to repress all independence on the part of the bar. Men of high honor would hesitate to join a profession in which their conduct might be subjected to investigation, censure, and punishment from imputations and charges thus secretly made.
Seeing that this must be the inevitable result of such an unlimited power of the court over its attorneys, my brethren are careful to express the opinion that it should seldom be exercised, when the offence charged against the attorney is indictable, until after trial and conviction, unless its commission is admitted. ”

“ A young civilian who knew the Penal Code, the Succession Act, the Contract Act, the two Procedure Codes, the Evidence Acts, the Limitation Act, and the Land Revenue Acts of his province would know more than nineteen barristers out of twenty when they are called to the bar ”

“ The Criminal Court of the District, as a court of general criminal jurisdiction, possessed the power to strike the name of the plaintiff from its rolls as a practicing attorney. This power of removal from the bar is possessed by all courts which have authority to admit attorneys to practice. It is a power which should only be exercised for the most weighty reasons, such as would render the continuance of the attorney in practice incompatible with a proper respect of the court for itself, or a proper regard for the integrity of the profession. ”

“ The only question before us is whether the police court had jurisdiction. A habeas corpus proceeding cannot be made to perform the function of a writ of error, and we are not concerned with the question whether the information was sufficient, or whether the acts set forth in the agreed statement constituted a crime, that is to say, whether the court properly applied the law, if it be found that the court had jurisdiction to try the issues and to render the judgment. ”

“ This latter privilege is confined to serjeants and barristers. Attorneys are regulated by statute, and are subject to many restrictions; having a rate of fees, settled either by statute or established usage; and required [Pg 88] to be fixed by the taxation of an officer of the court before a suit can be brought for them. Barristers are admitted only under the regulations established by the various inns of court; and the serjeants, who long had the monopoly of the Bar of the Common Pleas, are appointed by patent from the king. A barrister cannot be an attorney. ”

“ No one may be removed against his will from the jurisdiction of the tribunal in which he has a right to be tried. General confiscation of the property of a person adjudged guilty may not be imposed as a penalty for any offense. Save in exceptional cases, specified by law, or when in the opinion of the judge public order and morals forbid, the sessions of all courts are required to be public. Judgments must be pronounced in public session. ”

“ And I am yet to learn, that, in a joint action in contract against several, a nolle prosequi as to the whole action, against one, is not a bar as to him.
The cases are very few in the Books, in which the effects of a nolle prosequi, in such a case, has been tried by the only sufficient test-a plea in bar, to a suit upon the same contract. But as far as they have gone, they maintain the bar.
If a bar, in cases in which the suit is against a single defendant, there can be no reason assigned why it should not be a bar as against one of the several defendants. ”

“ This congestion is not wholly due to lack of judges, or that they are not capable and industrious men; but is largely, it seems to me, the fault of the system in vogue in all our American courts of allowing any lawyer, duty enrolled as a member of the Bar, to practise in the highest courts. In the United States we recognize no distinction between barrister and solicitor ”

“ Indeed, if applied consistently the majority's theory would mean that there is no case that could be appealed to this Court under the 'motion in bar' provision of the Criminal Appeals Act for it will always be true that a judge might have sent the case to the jury under instructions reflecting his view that the motion in bar was good, so that if the jury found the facts relied on in the motion, it should acquit. ”

“ Section 1014 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provides that, 'for any crime or offense against the United States, the offender may, by * * * any commissioner of the circuit court to take bail, * * * be arrested and imprisoned, or bailed, as the case may be, for trial before such court of the United States as by law has cognizance of the offense. ”

“ But we repeat, if a court martial has no jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the charge it has been convened to try, or shall inflict a punishment forbidden by the law, though its sentence shall be approved by the officers having a revisory power of it, civil courts may, on an action by a party aggrieved by it, inquire into the want of the court's jurisdiction, and give him redress. ”

“ Furthermore, a court has ample means at its disposal to prevent a party who has engaged in wrongful conduct from setting up defenses which would allow him to profit from the wrongdoing. Where the act of state doctrine becomes a rule of judicial abstention rather than a rule of decision for the courts, the proper disposition is dismissal of the complaint or staying the litigation until the bar is lifted, regardless of who has possession of the property whose title is in dispute. ”

“ Even when a disbarment standard is as unspecific as the one before us, members of a bar can be assumed to know that certain kinds of conduct, generally condemned by responsible men, will be grounds for disbarment. This class of conduct certainly includes the criminal offenses traditionally known as malum in se. It also includes conduct which all responsible attorneys would recognize as improper for a member of the profession.
The conduct for which the Court of Appeals disbarred petitioner cannot, how, ever, be so characterized. ”

“ The first thing the ordinary woman hastens to do if she be summoned to appear in a court of justice is not, as might be expected, to think over her testimony or try to recall facts obliterated or confused by time, but to buy a new hat; and precisely the same thing is true of the female defendant called to the bar of justice, whether it be for stealing a pair of gloves or poisoning her lover. ”

“ Appellant's application for a jury was in terms a motion for an order 'framing for trial by jury the issues in this action as to the occurrences of the alleged violations of the National Prohibition Act.' It clearly appears from the notice of motion and the supporting affidavits that the motion was not a challenge to the equity jurisdiction of the court nor a demand for a jury trial in an action at law, such as is guaranteed by the Constitution. ”

“ Plaintiff's cause of action * * * was his property. It has been destroyed. The district court, to punish a lawyer, has confiscated another's property without process of law, which offends the constitution. A district court does not lack disciplinary authority over an attorney and there is no justification, moral or legal, for its punishment of an innocent litigant for the personal conduct of his counsel. ”

“ There is not a single name of distinction now associated with the historic Court that has in the past resounded to the eloquence of so many splendid advocates. Nowadays the mention of the Criminal Bar only brings to mind such men as the Government prosecutor (official in all but name) , Mr. Poland, and a crowd of lesser lights, among whom Mr. Forest Fulton, M.P., and Mr. Gill stand forth as the most talented. There are at the Criminal Bar a number of newly-fledged barristers, and several indigent and disappointed men who are content to gain a small and precarious livelihood. ”

“ Crewe. A lawyer will prove that black is white if he is paid for it. In fact, I understand that, according to the etiquette of the bar, they have got to do it. A barrister has to abide by his brief and leave his personal feelings out of account."
"That's so. Theoretically he is an officer of the Court, and his services are supposed to be at the call of any man who is in want of him and can afford to pay for them. ”

“ The advantages, however, of the separation of the functions of the solicitor from those of the barrister are distinctly felt in the superior skill, as trial lawyers, developed by the restriction of court practice to the limited membership of the Bar, which would hardly exist if the practice were distributed over the whole field of both branches of the profession. ”

“ Of course, jurisdiction of an admiralty court-that is, power to hear and adjudge the issues, not merely to send out a monition-is not finally to be determined by mere allegations of the libel any more than jurisdiction of a court of law ultimately depends upon the plaintiff's allegation that the defendant is alive and within the district. ”

“ For, if the concurrent jurisdiction of the State courts do not become exclusive, upon a prosecution being commenced and carried on to conviction and punishment, it follows that neither a prosecution nor conviction in a State court can be a bar to a prosecution under the act of Congress in the federal courts ”

“ Under our institutions arbitrary power over another's lawful pursuits is not vested in any man nor in any tribunal. It is odious wherever exhibited, and nowhere does it appear more so than when exercised by a judicial officer toward a member of the bar practising before him. ”

“ It also has 'power to issue writs of mandamus, certiorari, prohibition, and habeas corpus, and also all writs necessary or proper to the complete exercise of its appellate jurisdiction.' Id. § 4. The constitution of 1849 provided that the district courts 'shall have original jurisdiction, in law and equity, in all civil cases where the amount in dispute exceeded two hundred dollars, exclusive of interest. In all criminal cases not otherwise provided for, and in all issues of fact joined in the probate courts, their jurisdiction shall be unlimited.' Const. ”

“ The word 'civil' is used in the act in distinction from 'criminal.' In the ninth and eleventh sections, conferring jurisdiction on the District and Circuit Courts, Congress had spoken of 'crimes and offences,' 'civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,' 'suits for penalties and forfeitures,' 'causes where an alien sues for a tort,' 'suits at common law,' 'suits against consuls' other than 'for offences,' and 'suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity.' They then declare that 'no civil suit' shall be brought, &c. ”

“ Before this explanation be condemned, and the bill found upon it, it would be proper that some lawyers should fully inform the jury what other law there is, either statute or common, for this dependency; and if there be no law, there is no transgression. ”

“ Whether, as some people tell us, the quality of the bar, and of police-courts in particular, has deteriorated of late years, whether it is assumed at present the plea of “public interests” covers every excess of zeal and every abuse of privilege which an advocate may permit himself, or whether it is that the inquiries before the magistrate, which have of late years grown to such inordinate dimensions, afford an entirely new field for the display of such excesses, we will not undertake to say. ”

“ Offenses of a lesser grade are called misdemeanors. The court has jurisdiction over all civil cases. The judge of the superior court has the power to issue various writs for the enforcement of the law, and grant charters to all corporations, except banking, insurance, railroad, canal, navigation, express, telephone, and telegraph companies. Cases appealed from justice courts, county courts, courts of ordinary, and certain city courts lie to the superior courts. ”

“ Where the verdict and judgment are set aside on a writ of error in an appellate tribunal, if the law of the jurisdiction makes no provision for a second trial the prisoner must be discharged, but it is settled law that it is competent for the legislature to provide that on reversing the judgment in such a case the court, if the prior proceedings are regular, shall remand the case for the proper sentence. ”

“ The Inns of Court, which are mere voluntary associations of lawyers, have from time immemorial exercised the function of calling to the bar, so far as barristers are concerned, and the admission of attorneys has always been regulated by Acts of Parliament. ”