The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-07-12

| erty gained or protected for a client should
| enter an element in the problem of deter
! mining the proper remuneration In cases
| where it is allowable for lawyers to under
take business on contingent fees, the Justice
OF a proportionate rate of compensation
will be quite generally recognized. Ordi-
nary collection business obviously falls I'M
der the same rule. as does also conveyancing
where principle not unlike that of insur-
ance comes into play. Forms of legal bust
ness that are more analogous to medical
services are criminal proceedings and matri-
monlal cases. The contention has been
made, and even judicially sanctioned, that
1t Is legitimate for jury to gauge the value
of legal services in defending a person on
criminal trial, ccording to the latter's
wealth, which proposition we deem unsound
in principle Inevitably tending to make le-
gal practice mercenary system of ransom
or tribute. The temptation of an advocate
to perform unprofessional acts, and entirely
lose sight of the proper restraints of an
oH1cer of the courts, in defending rich
rogue on criminal charge, would obviously
be greatly increased ii the counsel realized
that success would Iegallyssentitle him to a
certain proportionate share of the clients
fortune, no matter how large it was.
One passage from DIR. .Hammond's paper,
however, offers suggestion toward the
true rule for fixing charges for professional
services which are purely personal in their
nature. He says:
1.-The value of medical services is always
great, and it is only the rich who can prop
erly compensate the physician who renders
them. When the same services are given to
poor person, it is impossible that they
can be adequately rewarded, and hence
smaller fees are cheerfully received. 1t is
really not that the rich are charged more,
but that the poor are charged less 1t
would seem right that medical fees should be-
arranged upon the basis of the patient be-
ing worth certain amount (say S10e, 900.
and that the honorarium, if he chooses to
use that term, should be adjusted accord
ingly, being more or less as the wealth of
the patient was greater or less than the sum
fixed upon
In dealing with rich patients and clients,
physicians and surgeons, and lawyers act
ing in cases not involving specific property,
should make out their bills not commensur-
ately with the wealth of their employer,
but simply on the basis that he is rich
enough to pay whatever is right. The
charges should be fixed acc cording to the
practitioners standing and experience and
the amount of labor involved, the custom
airy rates of practitioners of equal stand
ing in the same community for similar SER
vices being kept in view as guide and
possible corrective. This general rule
would not preclude the acceptance of
smaller fees from poor people, but it would
debar practitioner from charging man
worth 900 more than one worth $780,
900 for the service. We believe it is essen
TALLY communistic, and subversiye of pro-
fessional conscience and dignity, to charge
a rich man all that can be screwed out of
him, in order to make up for what one
thinks he ought to havetreceived on account
of professional acts of charity or mercy.