St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-06-26
BIG LAWYERS FEES.

A story is going round the country, started
by the Epoch about the big fees sometimes
paid New York lawyers in exceptional cases,
The most recent example given is the fee of
S260.000 said to have been paid William Nell
son Cromwell for acting as referee of Deck
err Howell & Co.. bankers and brokers. Mr..
Cromwell was just six weeks III earning his
money, and enyious mathemaucians are
proving that he was paid at the rate OF S43,-
333.331s week. If he could always turn his
time and his talents to such advantage his
yearly income would exceed that OF any but
the half dozen richest millionaires in the
country. And Mr.. Cromwell is still a young
man, just turned forty, is seldom seen in the
courts, and for that reason is little known to
the general public. Nor would his slight
figure and pale. thoughtful face, crowned
with iron gray hair, attract any special atten-
ton.
Most of the stories told by the writer in the
Epoch are as full of exageration as most sto.
ries which involve sums of money over
S1,000,000, and the men who are said to own
them. Certainly there is no profession in
the world so lucrative as the law-to those on
the top. Nowhere does it pay better than in
New York for nowhere are suits involving
greater sums of money brought to trial. 1t
is natural that when many millions are at
stake in an issue at law the lawyer on whose
ability alone a litigant relies to win or save
the fortune should receive fat fees.
Or take the case Of railroad bondholders,
who to save ten or twenty or thirty millions
already invested, wish to create new mort
gage that shall be ironclad and proof against
the attack of future lawyers and litigants.
Tn cfJnh roc ths. nth Orit in tho
country will be asked to write the mortgage.
and for his work of perhaps three hours he
will receive fee of 100000. John c. Bullitt,
who drafted the Northern Pacific blanket
mortgage. probably received as much as that
and his services may have been worth it.
John Z. Parsons single fee of $780, was in
payment for services to the sugar trust Next
in magnitude comes the S150,0O0 fee which
Henry L. Clinton received from William H.
Vanderbilt his client in the Vanderbilt will
case. 1t is also remembered that Robert Sew
ell got S125, 600 from the Manhattan elevated
road as single fee, and Aaron Kahn received
$4,000 from Irene Hoyt in the big Hoyt will
case.
The incomes credited to great lawyers by
the Epoch writer are in almost every case
overstated. If the railroad magnates paid
the lawyers would soon own some railroads
and some magnates would be looking for
job or possibly studying law. 1t may not be
an exaggeration to say that sue h famous law
firms as Evarts Choate & Beaman, Tracy,
mcfarland. Boardman d Platt, Hoadly, Lau-
terbach Johnson, and Banks, Stetson,
Tracy & MacVeagh (Grover Cleveland's
frm) each divides among four or five part
ners from Sl50,000 10 $4,000 year. But
there are only four or five lawyers at the
New York bar who make, year in and year
out, 100000
How do they do it?
Years ago A. T. Stewart was harassed by
certain treasury decision, which vastly in
creased his payments Of duties. His lawyer
called one day about another matter. Stewart
spoke i'll an eXasperated way about the treas
ury decision.
Let me see the decision" said the lawyer.
After reading it through he said:
This law speaks of all silk garments.
Why don't you have thread of worsted run
into these goods when they are made
abroad?''
''Will that come within the new law?" asked
the great merchant.
Certainly"
'How much do you want for that opinion?''
asked stewart few months later.
Fifty thousand dollars said the lawyer
And he got it. He was modest too but
dollar went farther in those days than it does
now.
Stewart years after told his legal adviser
that the casual suggestion made that day had
been worth over 1900, 900 to the merchant
So the $4,000 fee was not high