The trust for sale has among other important features this fact, namely, that it has a number of statutory manifestations under the new legislation. The four most important of these are the trust for sale created where (A) land is beneficially held by joint tenants, and the legal estate will apparently be vested in the first four, since only four trustees are possible (L.P.A., s. 36 (1), and T.A., s. 34 (1)*; (B) land is held beneficially in undivided shares, and here again the first four will have the legal estate as joint tenants upon trust for sale (L.P.A., s. 34 (2); (c) there is an intestacy, in which case the personal representative holds in trust for sale; and (D) an ad hoc trust for sale is created under L.P.A., s. 2 (2). It should at once be remarked that the amending Schedule of the L.P.A., 1926, has provided that the overriding powers of this last form of trust for sale apply to all such trusts. The trust for sale has two functions, as a mode of conveyance. In the first place it retains the legal estate in the hands of easily identifiable persons who are traced by means of appointments of new trustees (which will, if made by deed imply a vesting declaration T.A., s. 40 (2) (b)) and a purchaser is even relieved from seeing that the right persons are appointed trustees (L.P.A., S. 24 (1). Furthermore, the trust will continue as long as the trust property has not been conveyed to or under the direction of the persons interested in the proceeds of sale (L.P.A., s. 23), at least so far as concerns the purchaser. All, therefore, that it is incumbent upon the purchaser to make sure is, that there was a trust for sale created, and that the property is vested in the originally appointed (using this in the wide sense) trustees, or their successors duly appointed or succeeding in their place, whose number must not be less than two or a trust corporation (L.P.A., s. 27 (1)), nor more than four (T.A., s. 34) unless one of the exceptions mentioned in that section applies. To the rule that there must be two trustees or a trust corporation there is now the important modification that a surviving joint tenant who is also solely beneficially entitled can deal with the property alone (amending Schedule to L.P.A., 1926), though the Act does not say how the purchaser is to be satisfied that the surviving joint tenant is also solely beneficially entitled; while L.P.A., s. 27, provides that a purchaser is not concerned with the trusts upon which the property is held (an extension of the doctrine laid down in Re Chafer and Randall's Contract, 1916, 2 Ch. 8). Another modification of still greater importance is L.P.A., s. 27 (2), which excepts from its provisions" the right of a sole personal representative as such to give valid receipts for or direct the application of the proceeds of sale." For what constitutes a trust corporation now see L.P.A., 1926, s. 3. 66 The second function of a trust for sale is to enable the trustees to override equitable interests which attach to the legal estate while in their hands, so that a purchaser may get a "clean fee simple absolute," with the result that the interest may be said to be able to make a fresh start " untrammelled by the dealings of any prior owners. This is the purport of L.P.A., s. 2, which now applies, as has been said, to all trusts for sale whether statutory, expressly created under this section or otherwise, or arising under an instrument. This section appears to override " any equitable interest or power" by making such interest or power operate only as though it arose under the trust for sale which is being exercised and so shift it to the proceeds of sale. To this proposition that any equitable interest or power" will be overridden there are certain exceptions numbered in L.P.A., s. 2 (3) and (5), which are, in fact, the more important and normal equities. Two remarks may be in point here: first, that the fee simple is not thereby cleared of the legal interests specified in L.P.A., s. 1, such as legal easements or rentcharges; and, secondly, that where the equities are created after 1925, those that cannot be overreached will have to be registered if they are to have this effect. However, in thus utilizing the trust for sale one factor came into play which could not be disregarded, namely, that trustees for sale are not necessarily or even usual beneficial owners as well. This rendered it necessary that their powers should be prescribed and that some provision for the protection of the cestui que trust should be made. Enumeration of individual powers would be tedious, if not useless, but a few generalities may be illuminating. So far as a sale is concerned, that being the purpose of the trust, it can always be carried out so long as the trust lasts, while a power to postpone is implied subject to the expression of a contrary intention (L.P.A., s. 25). At the same time under L.P.A., 1926, Schedule, amending L.P.A., s. 26 (3), the purchaser is never concerned with the wishes of the beneficiaries under the trust except when consent is expressly made necessary, and, indeed, the trustees need only consult them in the statutory trusts. Meanwhile, however, L.P.A., s. 3, makes some detailed provision to insure the rights of beneficiaries receiving adequate protection and even to enable them to dispose of their interests with the co-operation of the trustees so far as to affect the legal estate. A provision analogous to S.L.A., s. 16. Where dispositions other than sale or the management of the property prior to sale are concerned the trustees are much more hampered. Speaking generally, these restrictions are contained in a few sections of the L.P.A., while under S.L.A. they are to be treated as both tenant for life and trustees, i.e., in the position more or less of statutory owners (L.P.A., s. 28 (1), and L.P.A., 1926, Schedule amending, and S.L.A., s. 102). It will be borne in mind that these limitations will have to be suffered by all co-owners and that their transactions with their estates will be accordingly complicated if not restricted. While these matters are not essentially the conveyancing aspect of the method of trust for sale, it is as well to realise the complications in conveyancing which are the price paid for ensuring a simpler title to the fee simple absolute or term of years absolute as the case may be. There will, in consequence, be a multitude of equitable interests which cannot be dealt with under the protection of the old doctrine of bond fide purchaser of the legal estate except in some cases by the devious route of s. 3 of the L.P.A., and the powers of the legal owner limited by his fiduciary position. Meantime the title to the legal estate will involve a series of appointments of new trustees to complete it whatever happens to the equities. Time compels us to turn our attention to the last of the principal methods, namely, the Settled Land Act provisions. In a sense this is the very rock on which the edifice of the new legislation is builded since it was the difficulty caused by settlements and re-settlements with their numerous small legal estates or interests created by way of use which was chiefly thereby sought to be overcome. The plan adopted was, of course, the abolition of the Statute of Uses and small legal interests (which in the main were not the effect of that statute at all), together with the adoption of a totally new form of settlement and a large extension of the number of cases in which a settlement is deemed to exist. In fact, it would seem that a settlement was always to exist save where a fee simple was held by a beneficial owner unincumbered save for a mortgage of the fee simple or for registered equities. As it stood, this resulted in what could only be described as a curse for many smallholders and has therefore been modified by the L.P.A., 1926, s. 1, which provides that where the tenant for life under S.L.A., s. 20 (1) (ix), shall have the power to convey subject to a prior interest, the estate owner for the time being shall have power to convey as if the interest was not subject to the settlement under which the prior interest was created; and by the amendment in the same Act to L.P.A., s. 7, that a fee simple subject to a legal or equitable right of entry is for the purposes of this Act a fee simple absolute." The latter amendment applies, therefore, to the L.P.A. and does not ipso facto include the S.L.A., but it would, from the nature of things, seem to avoid the necessity of a settlement. 66 The system under the new Acts is in principle simple. It is to replace the Statute of Uses with a model working on the " use like" idea to a greater extent than the Statute of Uses operated. There is to be a succession of legal estates, in one sense (not a technical one), defying the Statute Quia Emptores (that bulwark of our Real Property law); but although they come into existence by reason of one instrument, namely, the trust instrument, they acquire their validity by virtue of a series of documents called vesting instruments. From one point of view the trust instrument, and not the vesting deed or other instrument, is the fundamental disposition upon which a settlement is constructed, although it cannot create or transfer a legal estate, not even (to take the most pronounced example) in the case of a will; for in this case it is the probate which is the title to the legal estate of the personal representatives, and under it a vesting instrument will be executed by them. At the same time, the conveyancer will naturally draw his trust instrument first, while remembering that here he is dealing only with equitable interests, but that a deed will be necessary for a settlement created inter vivos (S.L.A., s. 4 (1)). It is only then that he is really in a position to determine in whom the legal estate shall be vested, that is to say, who will be the tenant for life in possession or the statutory owners, who may, of course, be also trustees of the settlement (S.L.A., s. 117 (1) (xxvi)). However, so far as a purchaser of the legal estate is concerned, all that he will have to note is the series of vesting instruments which transfer the legal estate from one estate owner to another. After the first has been made by the legal owner of the property, the succeeding instruments will either be principal vesting instruments, or a subsidiary vesting deed if land is brought into settlement after the first deed through purchase out of capital moneys (S.L.A., sec. 10), and appointments of new trustees for the purposes of the Act. The vesting deeds subsequent to the first will be executed by the tenant for life (or estate owner to give him his proper title, which includes statutory owners) named in the preceding deed, or the special personal representatives of such estate owner if deceased, which may be described as the normal case. These special personal representatives would seem necessarily to be the trustees of the settlement for the purposes of the Act upon the construction of A.E.A., sec. 22 (1). The consequence of all this is that, where a limited owner in possession desires to dispose of his interest and turn it into capital money, the purchaser will have a simple task, since he is entitled to the legal estate despite any contrary stipulation in the contract (L.P.A., sec. 4 [sic; qu. 42]), and that will be conveyed to him under a settlement created or existing for the purposes of the Settled Land Act. He has merely to investigate a number of simple documents containing the particulars required by S.L.A., secs. 5 or 10, and to see that by these documents or other appointments of new trustees there are the required number of trustees for the purposes of the Act. It may be remarked here that L.P.A. 1926, Amending Schedule, further simplifies his task by making the trustees of the settlement under which the estate owner is selling trustees of the compound settlement, if any. This simplicity, however, does not extend to dealings with limited owners who are not entitled to be estate owners; for persons dealing with them the provisions are not quite so straightforward. Moreover, there is, as in the case of trust for sale, the difficulty which arises from the fact that the estate owner is in a fiduciary position. In this problem there are two principal factors-first, to protect the property from illegitimate dispositions by the tenant for life; and, secondly, to allow to the equitable owners, not estate owners, the greatest possible freedom and effectiveness in transactions with their interests. No attempt is made to compel the tenant for life to consult the beneficiaries under the trust instrument, although he is bound to consider the interests of the settled estate. At the same time the trustees for the purposes of the Act will always have to be joined to receive capital moneys, if any, and of such trustees there must be two or a trust corporation (S.L.A., sec. 94). Notice is required to be given to them of any dealings, but since the purchaser is not concerned to see that it is given, it is small protection (S.L.A., sec. 101), while in some few cases the consent of the trustees or the court must be obtained. Furthermore, of course the tenant for life can only act within the four corners of the statutory powers conferred upon him, and in consequence any extension of them by the trust instrument must also appear in the vesting instrument to enable him to exercise them. All this will be seen to be much more elaborate machinery than the method of trust for sale, and since it is now possible to entail personalty (L.P.A., sec. 130), and legal contingent remainders (so useful for avoiding perpetuity) have become non-existent, while the law for intestate succession is the same for realty and personalty, the trust for sale may now become even more common when its advantages are realised. To turn to the other side of the problem raised by the position of the estate owner, S.L.A., sec. 16, provides the solution to most questions concerned with the disposition by equitable owners when the legal estate may be prayed in aid. The cases falling within the section (see sub-sec. (5)) are principally concerned with raising money (see for construction of section Re Egerton's S.E. (95 L.J., Ch. 153)). L.P.A., 1926, sec. 1 (2), further provides that, where a legal estate has been created under this section, the estate owner of any land subject to such legal estate may deal with it as if it were not settled land. This, of course, can only apply where the interest would not otherwise be settled land. For the rest the equitable owner must deal with his interest as an equitable estate, and subject to the rules for and disabilities of such transactions. Perhaps we may here utter a last word; text-books seem to suggest that the old trust of land with a power of sale which was neither strict settlement nor trust for sale has disappeared. This conclusion is arrived at from a consideration of the wide wording of S.L.A., sec. 1, which seems to turn every such interest into a settlement for the purposes of the Act. The result of this would, of course, be to divest the trustees of the legal estate and to vest it in the tenant for life as discovered by S.L.A., sec. 19, or the person entitled to exercise such powers under S.L.A., sec. 20, and so involve the execution of a vesting instrument. At the same time, however, it must be borne in mind that this does not affect the doctrines of implied or constructive trust. Furthermore, the section must be construed in the light of Lawrence, J.'s, decision in Re Frewen (95 L.J., Ch. 297), in which, on a vendor and purchaser summons, he held that, where a settlement was framed with the express object of preventing a beneficiary from being or having the powers of a tenant for life, which were expressly conferred upon the trustees of the settlement, and the beneficiary was not in possession of the settled land, then the trustees had those powers. In summing up, then, it may be said that conveyancers will now always have to find a legal estate in one of three classes of persons, namely, a single beneficial owners, trustees for sale, or a tenant for life or persons having the powers of a tenant for life or statutory owners. If these persons desire to deal with the legal estate they can do so only by conferring it on one of these classes by the appropriate method to ensure this. Furthermore, the interests that they can transfer or create are very limited, while the incumbrances which can directly attach are restricted to a few legal interests (L.P.A., sec. 1) and registered equities. Meanwhile, behind these forms of disposition of the legal estate, whether by conveyance, vesting instrument, or appointment of new trustees and vesting declaration, the equitable interests will exist in their old numbers and will be dealt with in the main along old lines. Sometimes transactions with such interests will have the additional support of the legal estate, but principally will operate under the cloak of the legal estate by virtue of instruments familiar to many generations of the legal profession. THE HONOUR OF OUR PROFESSION AND OUR SOCIETY AS ITS GUARDIAN. By R. RALPH TREDGOLD (London). THE profession with which this paper is concerned is that of a solicitor. It is not intended to apply to the whole legal profession, which would include Bench and Bar as well as many others. Many of the quotations made use of, however, refer to "lawyers " generally. Now the phrase "the honour of the profession " is capable of more than one interpretation, according to the various senses in which the word "honour" is used, for three ideas are summed up in the word: Firstly, "Esteem due or paid to worth"; secondly, "That which rightfully attracts esteem, that is, high moral worth"; thirdly, "A nice sense of what is right, just and true, with a course of life correspondent thereto." Can we, speaking for the whole body of solicitors, assert that we have high moral worth and a nice sense of what is right, just and true, and claim the "esteem due or paid to worth"? After all, we are officers of the court, part and parcel of a judicial system which is said to be the finest in the world. One often hears words of highest praise spoken spontaneously of our English Judges, and one feels how well deserved such praise is. The very fact that the Bench is held in such high esteem helps to maintain its high moral worth, and it would be a great help in the maintenance of the honour of our profession if the Council of our Society could feel that solicitors were always held in the highest esteem by the public. The author of Stephen's Commentaries does well in prefacing his remarks as to solicitors with the observation that “taken as a whole there is no body of men in the kingdom who are more highly educated or more industrious than these gentlemen are, or more estimable in their private and in their professional behaviour." These words made a deep impression on the writer in his youth, and since then hundreds of articled clerks have been impressed by them and have been made to feel that they are about to join an honourable body of men, most estimable in their behaviour. They have thereupon set their faces towards this ideal. It is remarkable, however, how little is done by our society (in preparing young men and maidens to be solicitors) to bring before them the honour of the profession and to ensure that they will foster and maintain it. Unfortunately, it has become the fashion amongst witty and humorous persons to make jokes at the expense of lawyers and to refer to them with a smile as liars, thieves or rogues. Perhaps this will cease now that the profession is enriched by the refining presence of ladies, for you seldom call a lady a thief unless you wish to imply that she has stolen your heart. But if you turn to the word lawyer in a book of quotations you are not likely to find much of a flattering nature, and occasionally a scathing indictment. It was rather startling to take a book 66 from the shelves in our own society's library and find such unpleasant sentences as those which are included as a quotation from Myron Peck as follows:-" It is a mistake to suppose that a lawyer always labours for the interest of his client. It is his own interest he seeks and rare indeed is the occasion he will not sacrifice his client if he can put money into his own pocket by so doing." The first feeling that arises on reading such sentences is a strong desire to write an indignant repudiation across the page in red ink and seek an early opportunity of personal combat with the author. But as lawyers we must look at the other side of every question, and it is surprising to discover that Peck was himself a lawyer by profession. He was, however, an American, and as he was born in New York about 100 years ago the lawyers referred to must have been those of that remote period, and we may hope to find that he was not thinking of English lawyers at all. But we will do well to examine ourselves and see whether it can truly be said that the honour of the profession is such that the personal interests of a solicitor are always and entirely subordinated to those of his client when, as so very often occurs, the two interests are in conflict, and when, probably, the client will feel annoyed with us and perhaps even cease to be a client if we take the course of studying his interests alone, but will feel quite pleased if we take the course which serves our own immediate interests at his expense. Take, for example, the case of a client who is consumed with the idea of commencing litigation against a neighbour. It may be clear to the solicitor that his client is by no means certain of success. The case would be very profitable to the solicitor in any event. It might, moreover, be an interesting case, which would bring considerable reputation to the solicitor. In such circumstances it would require real moral effort for a young and optimistic solicitor to refrain from saying up and prosper," though the client's best interests could only be served by giving him a clear vision of the possibility of failure and of the cost and, perhaps, disastrous consequences to him which such failure would entail. "Go Abraham Lincoln uttered some very emphatic remarks as to the duty of solicitors to restrain the litigious propensities of their clients, when he said: "Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbours to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser-in fees, expenses and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man." And he added that a moral tone ought to be enforced in the profession which would drive out of it such men as would stir up litigation by such methods as habitually overhauling the register of deeds in search of defects in titles. Conflict between interest and duty may also arise where different methods of procedure are available to attain the same object, one method being, perhaps, very much more profitable to the solicitor than the other, which might, in some ways, be slightly to the advantage of the client. In litigation this may occur in the choice of tribunal. The solicitor must decide whether the case warrants the expense of a trial in the High Court, or whether he should recommend the cheaper and much more summary method of a trial in the County Court. A solicitor in the metropolis, and thus in proximity to the Royal Courts of Justice, naturally prefers the High Court. He knows that the system of pleadings will define the issue to be tried and the points he has to contend with. Moreover, the best counsel practise there and the judges are of the greatest eminence. Again, there are at least a dozen county courts in Greater London, and the difficulty in conducting cases in several of these at once makes it impossible to give as much attention to them as he can to twice the number in the High Court. Yet if a solicitor with the interests of his client alone in mind advises High Court proceedings when the case could have been brought in the County Court, he often meets the dishonouring suggestion that he is only thinking of his larger fees in recommending the High Court. To put himself above suspicion of this, a solicitor will sometimes have to agree to do the heavier work involved in a High Court action for the lower remuneration prescribed by the County Court scale, but this is not as it should be. Similar difficulties arise in conveyancing work. Perhaps a young solicitor may derive most of his income from a large landowner who is gradually selling his land in building lots or small holdings. The solicitor may himself have strong feelings against the intervention of a Government Department in private dealings with land. He will not fail, however, to put fairly before his client the provisions of the Land Transfer Acts and the arguments for and against the recording of his client's title at the Land Registry. If the client should decide to register, the solicitor's income from the conveyancing would be cut down by one-half. This might render it difficult for him to make both ends meet, but this fact will not deter him from his duty. It is seldom, however, that clients appreciate how completely a solicitor has to ignore his own immediate interests in such matters. During the present summer, a solicitor was heard to say that generally, when he had considered it advantageous to have a title recorded at the Land Registry and had so advised, such advice had been ignored. It appeared that his clients gained the impression that in recommending registration the solicitor was thinking of the small additional fees he would receive on the first registration, whereas (with full knowledge of the consequences to himself) the solicitor had been suggesting (in his client's interests) a procedure which would very much reduce his own fees in future and transfer to the Government (as official fees) a greater proportion of what the client had to pay. While referring to the Land Registry, it may not be inopportune to make the observation that no applications for registration ought to be received except through solicitors, or, if personal applications be received at all, the applicant should be charged fees slightly in excess of the very small percentage which would be charged to him by a solicitor, say one guinea per 1007. on the consideration. Think of the loss of time (and of expense in the salary of officials) which is incurred when a layman is being conducted through the process of land registration, as compared with the speedy manner in which an application is dealt with when all the papers are presented by a competent solicitor, who thoroughly understands both the law and the rules of the Registry. As a refutation of the suggestion sometimes made that solicitors for reasons of self interest prevent their clients recording their titles at the Land Registry, it should be mentioned that in spite of the widespread feeling in favour of private dealings in property (without the necessity of furnishing a Government Department with full particulars), between 15,000 and 16,000 dealings in land through the Land Registry were carried out by solicitors in non-compulsory areas last year. Most of these transactions took place at a time when carrying out the transaction through the Registry meant that the solicitors received only about one-fifth of the fee which they would have received if the transaction had been effected off the register. This could never have occurred if the solicitors had not been prepared totally to disregard their own immediate interests. I say immediate interests, for it cannot be too often repeated that the real interests of a solicitor can never conflict with those of his client, for it is always against the best interests of any solicitor to depart from his ideal and put his own material interests first. 66 But while it is easy and perhaps helpful to reason out in this way what our standard of conduct should be, it is by no means easy to follow the higher and resist the strong attractions of the lower ideal. This is clearly recognised in the Canons of Professional Ethics of the American Bar Association," which commence with a passage from George Sharswood, as follows:-" There is certainly without any exception no profession in which so many temptations beset the path, to swerve from the line of strict integrity, in which so many delicate and difficult questions of duty are continually arising. There are pitfalls and mantraps at every step, and the mere youth at the very outset of his career needs often the prudence and self-denial as well as the moral courage which belong commonly to riper years. High moral principle is the only safe guide, the only torch to light his way amidst darkness and obstruction." No one would venture to deny the truth of this, and yet how little enquiry is made into the moral character of men and women seeking to be admitted solicitors, and how little are high moral principles inculcated or enjoined during their training. Is it surprising in these circumstances that our ranks are sometimes invaded by those whom the author of Stephen's Commentaries refers to as "the evil-intentioned"? An evil-intentioned solicitor is certainly one of the most dangerous and odious of men, and if one out of every thousand solicitors had it in mind to use his position entirely for his own enrichment, without regard to the interests of those he represented, it would be quite enough to dispose of the honour (or esteem) accorded to the profession as a whole. One may recollect the old rhyme of the 17th century wit Samuel Butler : 66 Honour is like the glassy bubble Which cost philosophers some trouble, But the honour of the profession requires a great deal' more than mere lack of evil intention. In fact, in most of the cases which have disgraced our profession and in which the solicitor has misappropriated trust funds and the like, the trouble has not originated in deliberate evil intention, but the cause has been mere love of display or a lack of moral courageor stamina in the face of misfortune. In others, the cause has been a combination of optimism and carelessness. Perhaps. a solicitor's profits have not come up to expectation, while his commitments were based on an optimistic view of his prospects. His optimism prompts him to say: "Why bother the wife to cut down expenditure. I will make it up next year, and there is plenty of money at the bank." He becomes careless, but there is an inevitable shortage, and he finds himself relying upon one client's money to provide the funds to pay out another. It may be many months later when he awakes one night in a cold perspiration and realises that he is a criminal guilty of embezzlement of trust funds, liable to a long term of imprisonment and certain to be struck off the rolls in disgrace as soon as his crime becomes known. Now, having regard to the special difficulties of the profession, should not we as a society having the guardianship of its honour do more than we have done-firstly, to prove to the world that such honour exists; secondly, to see to the maintenance of such honour; and thirdly, to foster and improve such honour by setting before all those who intend to enter the profession a high standard of professional ethics, and take the greatest care that no evil-intentioned person should enter our ranks. Now, what steps can be taken to establish to the world the honour of the profession? It seems that one step is very necessary, difficult though it may be. It is that our society should absolutely guarantee the public against loss by the fraud of any solicitor. Some twenty years ago an attempt was made to protect the public against the fraud of solicitors by insisting on certain audits of their accounts, or that solicitors should make a statutory declaration annually that they had kept a separate account of clients' moneys, and that all such moneys were available for the clients concerned. The proposal was not carried, and the gentleman who led the opposition to it remarked that if, by adopting this proposal, they proclaimed to the world that the honesty of the profession was at such a low ebb that it required to be stimulated once a year by making such a declaration, the public would say that solicitors were a bad lot and the sooner strong measures were taken with regard to them the better. such proposal had been carried no doubt our profession would have temporarily lost honour (in the sense of esteem accorded to it) in the way suggested, but might it not possibly have gained honour (in the higher sense of real moral worth) if its best members had consented to submit to indignities to prevent its worst members from doing harm. If But surely the public can be safeguarded by means that do not in any way dishonour the profession, but on the contrary proclaim it as being essentially honourable. It may be well that our society should begin by undertaking to indemnify the public against any loss incurred by the fraud of any solicitor who is a member of the society in future, and take out a policy against liability under such indemnity; or the members might undertake individual responsibility to a limited sum in case of any such large losses as would deplete the society's funds. This would raise the prestige of such solicitors as were members of the society who could distinguish themselves by adding the letters M.L.S. to their names, and it would doubtless induce many others to join. Afterwards provision could be made that every articled clerk should, on admission or before being allowed to practise independently, deposit with the society a substantial sum or at least give a bond to the society conditioned against fraud. Moreover, special supervision might be kept over young solicitors during the first three years of their practice, when they might be kept under obligation to submit to an annual audit of their accounts and undergo such discipline as was proposed twenty years ago for all members of the profession. A solicitor carefully started on the right lines as regards the keeping of accounts would be much less likely to fall into careless habits than one who was allowed to start without any such supervision. Again, instead of suspending a solicitor from practice for six months or so for minor professional delinquencies the society might compel him to submit to similar supervision and discipline for as many years. No more tangible proof of integrity could be given to the public than a guarantee, and perhaps little could be done beyond this to prove the existence of the honour of the profession, except to insist that members of the society should not allow their honour to be challenged without taking care to refute the charge, and the society should be ready and willing to support individual members in this. To maintain the honour of the profession, our society should work steadfastly to remove, as far as possible, the difficulties of solicitors, by seeing that their remuneration, and other personal matters in their practice, are so ordered as to conflict as little as possible with the best interests of their clients. Of course, a good deal has been done in this direction, for instance: (1) The method of remuneration in conveyancing by a scale of charges for the whole work, instead of discouraging solicitors in conciseness by cuttin down their remuneration if they manage to cut down th length of a deed of conveyance; (2) The permission given t solicitors to make a fair agreement for remuneration by lump sum in other matters, instead of merely charging fo each letter written and attendance made, without muc regard to the real benefit thereof to the client; (3) Th increase of the solicitors' fees, and reduction of some of th registry fees, in the case of transactions at the Land Registry It would be well, however, if solicitors would make a practic of bringing definitely before The Law Society any matte of law or practice which promotes a conflict between solicitor's duty and his immediate interests, or causes mora difficulty, in order that the Council should consider whethe anything can be done towards preventing such conflicts o removing these special difficulties. 66 66 With regard to fostering the honour of the profession by seeing that articled clerks are impressed with its im portance, it may be recalled that at our provincial meeting in 1924 Mr. Bell, in his paper on "Forensic Etiquette, referred to the fact that the old law required that attorney were to be examined before the judges and none to be admitted but such as were virtuous, learned, and sworn to do their duty," but that since 1888 a solicitor has not even been required to take the simple oath truly and honestly to demean himself in the practice of a solicitor according to the best of his knowledge and ability, which was required up to that date. In the year 1848 Samuel Warren, a barrister and Fellow of the Royal Society, lectured in The Law Society's Hall on The Moral, Social and Professional Duties of Solicitors." The Society, in thanking him for his lectures, desired that they should be published, and they can now be read in book form in the Society's library. Why should not all articled clerks be compelled to take a course of instruction on their moral. social and professional duties as solicitors? This course might go beyond the scope of Mr. Warren's lectures and include a study of the special pitfalls to be met with in a solicitor's practice. Debates might be had and papers written on such subjects as the attitude adopted by the public with regard to solicitors, the conduct of the solicitors mentioned or referred to in the pages of fiction or represented on the stage, and such other matters as might occur to the professor in charge of the course. It is well for us to recognise that the high moral worth of the profession persists, and often shows itself brightly amongst us, even though, having regard to the unhappy lapses which occasionally occur, we cannot claim that it is untarnished. The fact that every case of defalcation, sharp practice or irregularity is made the subject of special comment in the Press is a direct compliment to the integrity of the profession as a whole. These cases are unusual and it is for this reason the Press draws attention to them. But let us try to ensure that even the unusual disappears, and that integrity without exception shall be the rule. And, lastly, it is of supreme importance to strive that those who come after us, and are our children in the law, brought into the profession by ourselves, enter it with bright and shining honour, and keep unsullied throughout their professional career a nice sense of what is right, just and true, with a course of life correspondent thereto." 66 SOME MATTERS AFFECTING THE STATUS OF THE PROFESSION. 66 66 By E. LESLIE BURGIN, LL.D. (London). The point to which I desire to draw attention can be stated in one sentence. It is this: The status of a profession depends entirely upon the attitude of the individual member of that profession to matters concerning the profession as a whole. This, of course, is a truism, and the idea itself admits of a far wider application than is necessary for my purpose on this occasion. Status," so the dictionary tells us, means standing or position in society or as regards rank or condition," and is a word derived from the Latin. The few remarks which I desire to make relate not to the status of any individual member of the profession, but to the status of the profession itself, and meaning by that expression the status of the solicitor's side of the legal profession. As one who has for very many years past been privileged to have some share in the training of articled clerks, I have always been at pains to impress upon the embryo solicitor that his admis sion to the Roll carried with it not only possibilities of considerable individual service and distinction, but also a definite 66 66 relationship to the profession, and through the profession to the generation to which he belonged. Upon the occasion of a provincial gathering of the members of the profession as a whole it is not, I think, out of place to consider together so important a subject as the status of our profession itself. "Standing or position in society standing or position compared with others." Every important commercial undertaking from time to time calls a halt, diverts part of its staff from their task of buying or selling to the internal problem of stocktaking. Every vessel at sea, and in these days every aeroplane or airship, is constantly engaged on the same task, taking stock of its own position, both actual and relative. Having recently returned from a sea voyage, during which we had all the experiences of bad weather, fog at sea and other incidents of maritime navigation, I was struck with the manner in which science assisted the determination of position. Charts, compasses, bearings, lighthouses, knowledge of the stars, the use of the log and soundings with the lead are now reinforced by bearings taken by wireless inter-communication, and the ship's position is plotted upon the map where the converging lines drawn from two different wireless stations intersect. The habit of occasionally diverting attention from outside to internal organisation, whether on the part of the indiviual towards his own life and responsibilities or of a community or profession, is an excellent one and should be encouraged. What, then, are the tests by which we ascertain the status, meaning thereby the standing or position in society, of the legal profession? Upon what factor does this status principally depend? Can that status be measured merely by reference to old standards or, as in maritime navigation, does science lend any new aid? Presumably the standing of a body of men and women towards others in an organised western community involves the consideration of the relations between that body of men and women and the Crown and the Government on the one hand and the populace on the other, and not merely in an ascending and descending scale in this way, but also collaterally, the standing in comparison with other bodies of men and women with other professions and classes. I would wish to emphasise that in considering status there are, of course, two different sets of considerations, positive and negative. The status of the profession, admittedly high at the present time, can be either improved, that is the positive side, or impaired, that is the negative side, by the acts of individual members. The Crown, the Government, the executive, the great departments of State, and in a very definite measure those departments of State with which solicitors most frequently come in contact, hold the profession itself in very high esteem and give to every individual member the benefit of that esteem. Membership of the profession is a proud and honourable distinction, carrying with it very definite rights, but also, I am anxious to make clear in this paper, involving quite definite responsibilities. I am not, of course, bearing in mind merely the responsibliities of punctiliously performing one's obligations first as a member of the profession, secondly as a citizen of the Empire, but a much wider responsibility because of the position which the profession and its members hold in society. The events in the industrial world, culminating in the general strike, invoked a fresh edition of the ever increasing claims made by all sections of the community to the necessity of the maintenance of the reign of law. When such a phrase as the reign of law is examined it will be found, unless I am profoundly mistaken, that the maintenance of law and order and the maintenance of respect for law, legal institutions, orderly government and therefore the instruments by which in this country freedom is preserved will, in the last resort, depend not upon His Majesty's judges nor upon magistrates and Courts of Justice, but much more upon the attitude of the individual member of the profession in his conduct toward the circle of people who depend upon him for advice. this note of a greater civic responsibility which I am most anxious to sound. When a person is sick in mind or body, the member of the medical profession who attends the patient has undoubted powers of impressing the public mind with the great and noble character of the medical profession. My simple contention is that a person sick in estate may suffer as acutely as any who are sick in mind or body, and that the task of relieving that suffering is an equally noble opportunity to that available to the medical profession. It is After all-what is the daily object of the members of our profession? Is it suggested that it is to determine accurately the law upon a given subject, is it to ascertain with all refinement the precise legal rule applicable to a given set of circumstances, is it to dispense legal information to all who present prescriptions for that purpose? No, it is very different. True-it may include all these, but in essence, we deal with life, with living exhibits, with human nature and with sentient beings. If every solicitor reflected that a letter written by him, claiming payment of a sum of money, to the private address of an individual may mean the bringing of a great cloud over the inmates of the house, may depress the householder or even spell ruin, there might be more humanity in the terms of some of those communications. If I am right in thinking that to the individual member of our profession there is given the opportunity by his dailycontact with persons, firms, and companies to instil a sense of respect for institutions, a sense of the attempt on the part of law and lawyers to secure absolutely impartial justice as between citizen and citizen and a burning desire not to allow any injustice, however great or however small, to pass without remedy, it follows that the attitude of the individual member of the profession to these topics and his conduct, viewed from that angle, must materially affect the status of the profession as a whole. In many a continental town, perhaps more often in the country districts, the lawyer is one of the local notables. Why? Because he, from the nature of his calling, must have studied history, must have studied government, administration, law making, law giving, and the determination by law of questions arising in the daily life of the community. Having had that specialised education he enjoys a certain exalted position because the remainder of the community give him credit for having derived benefit from the study of those subjects, but my experience tells me, from wanderings through Europe, both western and eastern, that the community also places upon the lawyer increased responsibility for those very reasons, and the lead which the lawyer gives in time of stress, literally in time of commotion, is regarded as a most significant direction to the people at large. In our own country, where the differences of education are rarely so definitely marked as in the case of eastern continental rural districts such as those to which I have referred, the position, although less apparent, is in my judgment exactly the same. The lead given by the lawyer by his consultations, by his attitude before the local authorities and by his own private life, is a factor of far-reaching consequence in his own circle and district. Knowing what I do of our profession, I think it fortunate for this country that this should be the case, and I am confident that the vast majority of the members of the profession are exercising an influence for good, an influence for stability, and an influence for maintenance of such institutions as have proved their worth in the country. Some of you may have witnessed the effect of suddenly switching the full glare of a searchlight or of powerful headlights upon an object or a person. You know that under the scrutiny of the light the slightest motion, the merest movement, is detected and recorded. It is precisely the same with regard to our profession. We live our lives in the continual glare of the limelight of public attention and with it focussed upon us. As officers of the Court-with a special code of honour -enjoying privileges and wielding authority, no one of us must ever forget the corresponding obligation and the exacting standard of conduct which the public will require and has a 'right to expect. The status of the profession is in our keeping, and individually we contribute to or deduct from the aggregate in the measure in which these matters are reflected in our own conduct. If we are taking stock of the profession and its activities, and are considering not merely matters relating to internal organisation, matters of a technical character, perhaps not unconnected with the method of our own remuneration, we may, I think, profitably at the same time consider matters relating to the position of the profession towards others, and in particular toward the maintenance of the institutions of our country. Foresight, with a touch of idealism, has been the dominant note underlying the lives of many of the most famous characters appearing on the pages of history. Precisely the same qualities are wanted in increasing measure to-day, both within the profession and without. My purpose is achieved if, above and beyond all the incentives to maintaining the highest reputation of the profession which exist in the heart and mind of all present, and of every individual new member passing from the stage of articled clerk to admitted solicitor, there may be added a wider conception of responsibility and therefore of usefulness, and I am confident that such considerations do in no small measure determine and affect the status of the profession as a whole. DR. ARTHUR SHADWELL has written round the articles which appeared recently in The Times (supplemented by a good deal of additional matter) the first complete account of the various recent socialistic experiments throughout Europe. The volume, which will be entitled "The Downfall of Socialism,” will be published in the early autumn by Messrs. Ernest Benn, Ltd. |