Legal profession

“ Like the extinct class of so-called physicians and doctors, who have now been amalgamated by the Public and Private Health Corporations, what was known as the legal profession or men known as lawyers and judges, had been gradually losing their characteristics as a class and had been step by step merging into men of business. ”

“ The function such groups serve is a rationalizing one and their power flows from and is limited to their ability to convince by arguments from generally agreed upon premises. They are exercising the techniques and knowledge which lawyers are trained to possess in the task of solving problems with which the legal profession is most familiar. ”

“ The profession of the Law is, of course, an honourable profession, and it is doubtless believed by its apologists to be a useful profession, on the whole; but a body of lawyers somewhat less numerous, and with a lower average proficiency in legal subtleties and expedients, would unquestionably be quite as serviceable to the community at large as a larger number of such men with a higher efficiency ”

“ A lawyer is one who, by profession, transacts legal business for others, who, in this relation, are called clients. A lawyer is either an attorney or councillor, or both. The part of legal business, belonging peculiarly to the attorney, consists in preparing the details of the pleadings and the briefs for the use of the councillor, whose especial province it is to make the argument before the court. ”

“ hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends this habitude to all classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue; ”

“ When the lawyer prepares his own case and makes the argument, as he generally does, he acts in the capacity of both attorney and councillor. In the court of chancery the lawyer is denominated solicitor, and in the admiralty court, proctor. Before a person is permitted to practise law in our courts, he is required to pass through a regular course of study, and afterwards [216] undergo an examination before persons learned in the law.
2. This profession has its foundation in the numerous and complicated laws which have been adopted by men, to govern their intercourse with each other. ”

“ As an advocate in the Criminal Court, as counsel in the Civil Courts, as a cross-examiner in involved Equity suits, or in reducing complicated issues, he could dive into the depths of the sea of legal lore and bring out conclusive points in favour of his clients. ”

“ One of them, still young, is typical of the American character, but a respectable person, and a lawyer in considerable practice. Every one in this country follows a profession; but it must be admitted that the professions are more highly remunerated than chez vous. ”

“ No person convicted of Catholicism may practice the common law as a counsellor, clerk, attorney, or solicitor, nor may practice civil law as advocate, or proctor, nor shall be justice, minister, clerk, or steward in any court, nor practice medicine, nor perform as apothecary, nor be officer in a town, in the army, or navy, or forfeit 100 pounds. ”

“ When we study law we are not studying a mystery but a well-known profession. We are studying what we shall want in order to appear before judges, or to advise people in such a way as to keep them out of court. The reason why it is a profession, why people will pay lawyers to argue for them or to advise them, is that in societies like ours the command of the public force is intrusted to the judges in certain cases, and the whole power of the state will be put forth, if necessary, to carry out their judgments and decrees. ”

“ To acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles, and an accurate and ready use of the technical terms and phrases not only of the conveyancer's office but of the pleader's chambers and the Courts at Westminster, nothing short of employment in some career involving constant contact with legal questions and general legal work would be requisite. ”

“ Without disparagement to either of the other professions, or to the ability, or pretenses to ability, or to the character of those who are more strictly deemed public men, it must be admitted that the evidence of character and ability afforded by a reputation as a lawyer in the front rank of his profession, is, beyond all question, superior to that which is offered by the holding of any mere public position or office ever has, or in and of itself ever can afford. ”

“ The laws, therefore, of a nation so circumstanced, must increase to such a number, and consist of so great a variety of particulars, as to render it impossible for the generality of the subjects to be masters of them, and will oblige them to resort to those whose easy circumstances and leisure have enabled them thoroughly to comprehend and understand them; and among such a people there must be lawyers, although, perhaps, not formed into a distinct and separate profession, or known by that appellation. ”

“ The office of a practising lawyer was the only place in which the law could be learned, if at all. The eminent authority just mentioned thus sketched the process of legal training in his day: “It is a most melancholy state of things. There is nothing like education for law students now. ”

“ Article 2
⁠For the purposes of this Law, a lawyer means a professional who has acquired a lawyer's practice certificate pursuant to law, and is authorized or designated to provide the parties with legal services.
⁠A lawyer shall protect the lawful rights and interests of parties, ensure the correct implementation of law, and safeguard fairness and justice of the society. ”

“ Lawyers shall pay ten dollars for each license. Every person who, for fee or reward, shall prosecute or defend causes in any court of record or other judicial tribunal of the United States, or of any of the states, or give legal advice in relation to any cause or matter whatever, shall be deemed to be a lawyer within the meaning of this act. ”

“ Attorneys and counsellors-at-law-and the two characters are in this country generally united in the the same person-are officers of the court, admitted to be such by its order upon evidence that they possess sufficient learning to advise as to the legal rights of parties, and to conduct proceedings in the courts for their prosecution or defence, and that they have such fair private characters as to insure fidelity to the interests intrusted to their care. ”

“ Merchants, inventors, landlords, captains of industry and the like could, where the law touched their spheres of influence, find appropriate legal specialists with all the precedents, traditions, decisions, appeals, evasions, etc., at their fingers' ends. ”

“ Of course, every law student becomes familiar with the jests and gibes cast at the members of the profession as men who are peculiarly economical of the truth. He smiles with those who hint that a lawyer is always lavish of advice that leads to litigation. ”

“ Historically, in this country, the lawyer has also borne a great part in the making and administering of our institutions of government. If, as some of us think, the ethical code of that profession needs to be somewhat revised in view of present-day conditions, and needs also to be more sternly applied to some of the members of the profession, it is true, none the less, that there clearly belongs to this great calling a series of duties of a public nature, some of them imposed by the laws of the land, and others inherent in the very nature of the occupation itself. ”

“ Our decision today speaks to the interpretation of a statute, to the requirements of the law, and not to the professional responsibility of the lawyer. Lawyers, like all those who practice a profession, have obligations to their calling which exceed their obligations to the State. Lawyers also have obligations by virtue of their special status as officers of the court. Accepting a court's request to represent the indigent is one of those traditional obligations. ”

“ Administrative courts exist for the application of administrative law, and administrative law may be defined in brief as that body of legal principles by which are determined the status and liabilities of public officials, the rights and liabilities of private individuals in their dealings with the official representatives of the state, and the procedure by which these rights and liabilities may be enforced. ”

“ To be an attorney one had to be educated and certified at the Inns of Court. They practice law full time. Some are employed by the King. Justices come to be recruited from among those who had passed their lives practicing law in court, instead of from the ecclesiastical orders. ”

“ The magistrates throughout the country found themselves for the first time confronted by a pertinacious legal expert, who, far more ingenious than the employers, was not less unscrupulous in taking advantage of every technicality of the law. ”

“ An applicant for admission to practice law may justly be deemed to be aware of the traditions of the profession which he is joining, and to know that one of these traditions is that a lawyer is an officer of the court obligated to represent indigents for little or no compensation upon court order. ”

“ Fair abilities, zeal, industry, a sanguine temperament, and some special bent or fitness for the profession of the law, will make a good and successful lawyer. Such a man's mind will be entirely in and limited by the immediate case in hand, and virtually his intellectual life will be recorded in his cases. ”

“ The words 'due process of law,' when applied to judicial proceedings, 'mean a course of legal proceedings according to those rules and principles which have been established in our systems of jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private rights.' Pennoyer v. ”

“ PRACTISING lawyers in so progressive a country as America are continually met with new devices, with new legal situations, with want of remedies, for which neither the text-books nor their legal education afford them precedent or direct advice ”

“ Both the theories and practice of lawyers, both legal definition and the regular working of regularly constituted courts of justice, have here given an amount of system and rigidity to classes of people connected with the land, and to their rights and duties, which it would be an error to seek in old hill-states where there were no lawyers, and practically no law but custom and the will of the chief ”

“ See lord Bacon's proposals and offer of a digest.
For I think it is past dispute that those gentlemen, who resort to the inns of court with a view to pursue the profession, will find it expedient (whenever it is practicable) to lay the previous foundations of this, as well as every other science, in one of our learned universities. We may appeal to the experience of every sensible lawyer, whether any thing can be more hazardous or discouraging than the usual entrance on the study of the law. ”

“ The high social purpose of the profession, its beneficial function, and the limitations upon its action that should be self-enforced in order to make the calling an advantage and not a detriment to the public weal, should be understood. Indeed, [Pg 22] the profession of the law, if it serves its high purpose, and vindicates its existence, requires a double allegiance from those who have assumed its obligations, first, a duty toward their clients, and second, a duty toward the court. ”

“ Your profession has this agreeable peculiarity in it, which is, that it is connected with, and promoted by pleasures; and it is the only one in which a thorough knowledge of the world, polite manners, and an engaging address, are absolutely necessary. If a lawyer knows his law, a parson his divinity, and a financier his calculations, each may make a figure and a fortune in his profession, without great knowledge of the world, and without the manners of gentlemen. ”

“ After knowledge of the Twelve Tables had been diffused, and after the secrets of legal procedure had been disclosed by a secretary of Appius Claudius, there grew up a class of men, the jurisconsulti, learned in the law, who gave their advice, and also, later, advocates distinguished by their oratorical powers, who, as among ourselves, were furnished with materials and suggestions by lawyers of lower grade. ”

“ The work has established itself as the standard legal adviser of all classes, and has also made a reputation for itself as a useful book of reference for lawyers residing at a distance from law libraries, who are glad to have at hand a work embodying recent decisions and enactments. ”

“ The vivid pictures of a leading jurisconsult's daily practice which abound in Latin literature—the clients from the country flocking to his antechamber in the early morning, and the students standing round with their note-books to record the great lawyer's replies—are seldom or never identified at any given period with more than one or two conspicuous names. ”

“ Whether they seek them or are sought, lawyers, in point of fact, always have filled, in much the larger proportion over every other profession, the most important public posts. They will continue to do so, at least so long as the profession holds the high and well-merited place it now does in the public confidence. ”

“ As great cities have grown up, and properties large in amount have come under litigation, certain lawyers have found it expedient and practicable to devote themselves to special branches of their profession. ”