A Philadelphia Lawyer in the London Courts Part 2

Having gained some ident.i.ty, and more or less business "on his own"

from the solicitors, a devil gradually begins to shine as a junior, whereupon appears his own satellite in the person of a younger man as devil, while the junior becomes more and more absorbed in the engrossing but ever fascinating activities of regular practice at the Bar.

Reaching a certain degree of prominence, a junior at the common-law Bar may next "take silk;" that is, become a K. C., or King's Counsel, which has its counterpart at the Chancery Bar, as will be explained later when dealing with the division between the law and equity sides of the system. Whether a barrister shall "apply" for silk is optional with himself and the distinction is granted by the Lord Chancellor, at his discretion, to a limited, but not numerically defined, number of distinguished barristers. The phrase is derived from the fact that the K. C.'s gown is made of silk instead of "stuff," or cotton. It has also a broad collar, whereas the stuff gown is suspended from shoulder to shoulder.

Whether or not to "take silk," or to become a "leader," is a critical question in the career of any successful common law or chancery barrister. As a junior, he has acquired a paying practice, as his fee is always two-thirds that of the leader. He has also a comfortable chamber practice in giving opinions, drawing pleadings and the like, but all this must be abandoned--because the etiquette of the Bar does not permit a K. C. or leader to do a junior's work--and he must thereafter hazard the fitful fancy of the solicitors when selecting counsel in important causes. Some have taken silk to their sorrow, and many strong men remain juniors all their lives, trying cases with K. C.'s much younger than themselves as their leaders.

They tell this story in London: A certain Scotch law reporter (recently dead), noted for his shrewdness and good judgment, having been consulted by a barrister whether to "apply for silk," advised him in the negative, but declined to go into particulars. The barrister renewed his inquiry more than once, finally demanding the Scot's reason for his advice. The latter reluctantly explained that the barrister had a good living practice which he would be foolish to give up. Being further pressed, he finally said: "In many years'

observation of the Bar I have learned that success is only possible with one or more of three qualifications, that is, a commanding person, a fine voice, or great ability, and I rate their importance in the order named. Now, with your wretched physique, penny-trumpet voice, and mediocre capacity, I think you would surely starve to death." The barrister did not "apply," but never spoke to the Scotchman again.

The anecdote ill.u.s.trates the crucial nature of the step when taken by any barrister, and even if taken with success, yet there are waves of popularity affecting a leader's vogue. Solicitors get vague notions that the sun of a given K. C. is rising or setting--that the judges are looking at him more kindly or less so, therefore K. C.'s and leaders who were once overwhelmed with business, may sometimes be seen on the front row with few briefs.

A successful K. C. leads a strenuous life, as may well be appreciated if he be so good as to take his American friend about with him in his daily work, seating him with the barristers while he is actually engaged. One very eminent K. C., who is also in Parliament, rises in term time at 4 a.m., and reads his briefs for the day's work until 9, when he breakfasts and drives to chambers.

Slipping on wig and gown at chambers and crossing the Strand, or arraying himself in the robing room of the Law Courts, he enters court at 10:30, and takes part in the trial or argument of various cases until 4 o'clock, often having two or three in progress at once, which require him to step from court to court, to open, cross-examine, or close, having relied upon the juniors and solicitors to keep each case going and tell him the situation when he enters to take a hand. From 4 to 6:30 he has consultations at his chambers, at intervals of fifteen minutes, after which he drives to the House of Commons, where he sits until 8:30, when it is time for dinner. If there is an important debate, he returns to the House, but tries to retire at midnight for four hours' sleep. Naturally the Long Vacation alone makes such a life possible for even the strongest man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CROSSING THE STRAND FROM TEMPLE TO COURT]

His success, however, means much, for there lie before him great pecuniary rewards, fame, perhaps a judgeship, or possibly an attorney-generalship, both of which, unlike their prototypes in America, mean very high compensation, to say nothing of the honor and the t.i.tle which usually accompany such offices.

The English Bar is small and the business very concentrated, but no statistics are available, for many are called who never practice. By considering the estimates of well-informed judges, barristers and solicitors, it seems that the legal business of the Kingdom is handled by so small a number as from 500 to 800 barristers, although the roll of living men who have been called to the Bar now includes 9,970 names.

We have no Bar with which to inst.i.tute a comparison, for each county of every State has its own and all members of county Bars, practicing in the appellate court of a State, const.i.tute the Bar of that State, which is a complete ent.i.ty. Great commercial centres have larger ones and have more business than rural localities, but no Bar in America is national like that of London.

It would be interesting, if it were possible, to compare the proportion of the population of England, which pursues the law as a vocation, with that of the United States, but no figures exist for the purpose. The number of barristers includes, as already stated, those who do not practice, while an enumeration of the solicitors'

offices would exclude individual solicitors employed by others, as will be explained hereafter. The aggregate of these two uncertain elements, however, would be about 27,000. The legal directories give the names of something like 95,000 lawyers in America of whom about 27,000 appear in fifteen large cities--New York, for example, being credited with over 10,000, Chicago with over 3,500 and San Francisco with about 1,500--leaving about 69,000 in the smaller towns and scattered throughout the land. These tentative, and necessarily vague, suggestions rather indicate that the proportion of lawyers may not be very unequal in the two countries.

CHAPTER IV

BARRISTERS--THE COMMON LAW AND THE CHANCERY BARS

BAR DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS--NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN CRIMINAL AND CIVIL PRACTICE--LEADERS--"TAKING HIS SEAT" IN A PARTICULAR COURT--"GOING SPECIAL"

--LIST OF SPECIALS AND LEADERS--SIGNIFICANCE OF GOWNS AND "WEEPERS"--"BANDS"--"COURT COATS"-- WIGS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS--BARRISTERS' BAGS, BLUE AND RED.

The Bar is divided into two separate parts--the Common Law Bar and the Chancery Bar; for a barrister does not try cases of both kinds as in America. The solicitor knows whether he has a law or equity case in hand, and takes it to the appropriate barrister.

Common law barristers have their chambers chiefly in the Middle Temple and Inner Temple; chancery men, largely in Lincoln's Inn, and the two kinds of barristers know little of, and seem even to have a kind of contempt for, each other. Thus a common law barrister pa.s.ses his life in jury trials and appeals; whereas a chancery man knows nothing but courts of equity, unless he follows a will case into a jury trial as a colleague of a common law man to determine an issue of _devisavit vel non_. And there are further specializations--although the divisions are not so marked--into probate, divorce or admiralty men. Besides, there is what is known as the Parliamentary Bar, practicing entirely before Parliamentary committees, boards and commissions. It is, however, curious that in England no apparent distinction exists between civil and criminal practice and common law barristers accept both kinds of briefs indiscriminately.

At the Chancery Bar there is a peculiar subdivision which has already been mentioned. Having reached a certain degree of success and become a K. C., a barrister may "take his seat" in a particular court as a "leader" by notifying the Judge and informing the other K. C.'s who are already practising there. Thereafter he can never go into another, except as a "special," a term which will be explained presently. For three pence, at any law stationer's, one can buy a list of the leaders in the six chancery courts, varying in number from three to five and aggregating twenty-five, and if a solicitor wishes a leader for his junior in any of these courts he must retain one out of the limited list available or pay the "special"

fee. Hence, these gentlemen sit like boys in school at their desks and try the cases in which they have been retained as they are reached in rotation.

But even for a leader at the Chancery Bar, one more step is possible, a step which a barrister may take, or not, as he pleases, and that is: he may go "special." This means that he surrenders his position as a leader in a particular court and is open to accept retainers in any chancery court; but his retainer, in addition to the regular brief fee, must be at least fifty guineas or multiples of that sum, and his subsequent fees in like proportion. The printed list also shows the names of these "specials," at present only five in number. The list of leaders and specials in 1910 reads as follows:

A LIST OF HIS MAJESTY'S COUNSEL

USUALLY PRACTICING IN THE CHANCERY DIVISION OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

THE FOLLOWING COUNSEL ARE NOT ATTACHED TO ANY COURT, AND REQUIRE A SPECIAL FEE:--

Mr. Levett: Mr. Astbury: Mr. Upjohn: Mr. Buckmaster.

COUNSEL WHO HAVE ATTACHED THEMSELVES TO PARTICULAR COURTS, ARRANGED IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE ENt.i.tLED TO MOVE:--

--------------------+-------------+------------------------+----------- Mr. Justice Joyce | Date of | Mr. Justice Warrington | Date of Lord Chancellor's | Ap'ointment | Chancery Court 2 | Ap'ointment Court | | | --------------------+-------------+------------------------+----------- Mr. T. R. Hughes | 1898 | Mr. Henry Terrell | 1897 Mr. R. F. Norton | 1900 | Mr. T. H. Carson | 1901 Mr. R. Younger | 1900 | Mr. George Cave | 1904 | | Mr. A. C. Clauson | 1910 --------------------+-------------+------------------------+------------ Mr. Justice Eve | Date of |Mr. Justice Swinfen Eady| Date of | Ap'ointment | Chancery Court 1 | Ap'ointment --------------------+-------------+------------------------+------------ Mr. P. O. Lawrence | 1896 | Mr. W. D. Rawlins | 1896 Mr. Ingpen | 1900 | Mr. E. C. Macnaghten | 1897 Mr. Dudley Stewart- | | Mr. N. Micklem | 1900 Smith | 1902 | | Mr. A. H. Jessel | 1906 | Mr. Frank Russell | 1908 Mr. E. Clayton | 1909 | | ====================+=============+========================+============ Mr. Justice Melville| Date of | Mr. Justice Parker | Date of | Ap'ointment | Chancery Court 4 | Ap'ointment --------------------+-------------+------------------------+------------ Mr. Bramwell Davis | 1895 | Mr. W. F. Hamilton | 1900 Mr. J. G. Butcher | 1897 | Mr. M. L. Romer | 1906 Mr. C. E. E. Jenkins| 1897 | Mr. E. W. Martelli | 1908 Mr. A. F. Peterson | 1906 | Mr. A. Grant | 1908 Mr. F. Ca.s.sel | 1906 | Mr. J. Gatey | 1910 ====================+=============+========================+============

NOTE--Counsel attached to the above Courts usually also practice before the Judge to whom the Companies winding-up matters are attached.

Printed and Published by

THE SOLICITORS' LAW STATIONERY SOCIETY, LIMITED, 22.

CHANCERY LANE, W. C., 29, WALBROOK, E. G., 6, VICTORIA STREET, S. W.

Chancery forms of all kinds kept in stock.

Price Threepence.

[Transcriber's Note: In the original text, the section for M.

Justices Melville and Parker appears on the following page, across from the section for M. Justices Joyce and Washington.]

The dress of barristers is the same for the Common Law Bar as for the Chancery Bar, but the details of both gown and wig signify to the initiated much as to the professional position of the wearer.

The difference between the junior's stuff gown and the leader's silk one has already been referred to, but it is not true that a barrister having "taken silk," that is, having become a K. C. or a leader, always wears a silk gown, for, if he be in mourning, he again wears a cotton gown, as he did in his junior days, but, to preserve his distinction, he wears "weepers"--a six-inch deep, white lawn cuff, the name and utility of which originated before handkerchiefs were invented. Moreover, when in mourning his "bands"--the untied white lawn cravat, hanging straight down, which all barristers wear--have three lines of st.i.tching instead of two.

Under his gown, a K. C. wears a "court coat," cut not unlike an ordinary morning coat, though with hooks and eyes instead of b.u.t.tons, while the junior wears the conventional frock coat. On a hot day, a junior wearing a seersucker jacket and carelessly allowing his gown to disclose it, may receive an admonition from the court, whispered in his ear by an officer.

Wigs, which were introduced in the courts in 1670, and have long survived their disappearance in private life, were formerly made of human hair which became heavy and unsanitary with repeated greasing.

They required frequent curling and dusting with powder which had a tendency to settle on the gown and clothing. About 1822, a wig-maker, who may be regarded as a benefactor of the profession, invented the modern article, composed of horse hair, in the proportion of five white strands to one black; this is so made as to retain its curl without grease, and with but infrequent recurling, and it requires no powder.

The wig worn by the barrister in his daily practice has already been described, but, when arguing a case in the House of Lords he has recourse to an extraordinary head-dress, which is precisely the shape of a half-bushel basket with the front cut away to afford him light and air. This, hanging below the shoulders, has an advantage over the Lord Chancellor's wig in being more roomy, so that the barrister's hand can steal inside of it if he have occasion to scratch his head at a knotty problem, whereas his Lordship, in executing the same manoeuvre, inevitably sets his awry and thereby adds to its ludicrous effect.

To the unaccustomed eye, the wig, at first, is a complete disguise.

Individuality is lost in the overpowering absurdity and similarity of the heads. Then, too, there is an involuntary a.s.sociation of gray hair with years, making the Bar seem composed exclusively of old gentlemen of identical pattern. The observer is somewhat in the position of the Indian chiefs, who, having been taken to a number of eastern cities in order to be impressed with the white man's power, recognized no difference between them--although they could have detected, in the deepest forest, traces of the pa.s.sage of a single human being--and reported upon returning to their tribes that there was only one town, Washington, and that they were merely trundled around in sleeping cars and repeatedly brought back to the same place.

By degrees, however, differences between individuals emerge from this first impression. Blond hair above a sunburned neck, peeping between the tails of a queue, suggests the trout stream and cricket field; or an ample cheek, not quite masked by the bushel-basket-shaped wig, together with a rotundity hardly concealed by the folds of a gown, remind one that port still pa.s.ses repeatedly around English tables after dinner. But it must be said that, while the wig may add to the uniformity and perhaps to the dignity--despite a certain grotesqueness--of a court room, yet it largely extinguishes individuality and obliterates to some extent personal appearance as a factor in estimating a man; and this is a factor of no small importance, for every one, in describing another, begins with his appearance--a man's presence, pose, features and dress all go to produce prepossessions which are subject to revision upon further acquaintance. One thing is certain, the wig is an anachronism which will never be imported into America. For the Bar to adopt the gown (as has been largely done by the Bench throughout the country) would be quite another matter and it seems to work well in Canada. This would have the advantage of distinguishing counsel from the crowd in a court room, of covering over inappropriateness of dress and it might promote the impressiveness of the tribunal.

The bag of an English barrister is also an important part of his outfit. It is very large, capable of holding his wig and gown, as well as his briefs, and suggests a clothes bag. It is not carried by the barrister himself, but it is borne by his clerk. Its color has a deep significance. Every young barrister starts with a _blue_ bag and can only acquire a _red_ one under certain conditions. As devil, and as junior, it is not considered _infra dig._ to carry his own bag and he has ever before him the possibility of possessing a red bag. At last he succeeds in impressing a venerable K. C. by his industry and skill in some case, whereupon one morning the clerk of the K. C. appears at the junior's chambers bearing a _red_ bag with his initials embroidered upon it--a gift from the great K. C.

Thereafter he can use that coveted color and he may be pardoned for having his clerk follow him closely for awhile so there may be no mistake as to the ownership. Custom requires him to tip the K. C.'s clerk with a guinea and further exacts that the clerk shall pay for the bag, which costs nine shillings and sixpence, thus, by this curious piece of economy, the clerk nets the sum of eleven shillings and sixpence and the K. C. is at no expense.