The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-06-28
RAISING THE LEGAL STANDARD.

The Supreme Court of our State
has appointed or established a Board
of Law Examiners, who are authoriz-
ed to recommend to the Court a plan
prescribing the terms and conditions
of studentship, a course of study for
the preliminary and final examina-
tions of students at law, and to whom
shall be referred all applications for
admission to the Bar of said court,
will gradually raise the standard of
professional qualifications and attain
ments throughout the State, and re-
duce the volume of litigations, by no
means inconsiderable, due to profess
sional misjudgment and errors of
practice. The rules adopted by the
Supreme Court will eventually be
adopted by the county courts to
smooth the way to admission to the
Bar of the highest court, and thus
uniformity of procedure in this i'm
portant matter will be secured. This
action has been brought about upon
the recommendation of the Bar Asso-
ciation of the State. Without doubt,
it will do much good, but we trust
the new plan will not be oppressive
to poor boys in the matter of fees and
so on. If mankind had some near
approach to the ideal state, there
would be sort of free trade in the
matter of practjcing the professions.
But as this is not the condition of
man, the Government finds it neces-
sary to protect its citizens by throw
ing up some safeguards against
quackery in medicine, ignorance in
pharmacy and incompetence in law.
The object of the new rules Of ad-
mission is to bring higher ability to
the Bar. Without doubt, much 1iti-
CATION comes from bad equipment of
attorneys, all of whom unduiy bur-
den the courts. An inquiry has
been made concerning nearly 10000
cases tried in the appellate courts of
the United States, covering jurisdic-
tions in forty-seven States and Terri
tories. The inquiry brought forth
the following comment
Substantially one-half of the time,
expense and labor incurred by Our
highest courts in determining the
legal questions they could not evade
was spent in correcting the mistakes
of lawyers, in teaching lawyers how
to practice law. We do not demand
that practitioner shall be infallible
in his application of the rules ofprac-
tice, but we do insist that every we'll
trained lawyer should be able to con-
duct litigation with but small per-
centage of misjudgment, by no means
approaching that which the figures
herein given show now is the rule.
The fact that of the 29,942 points
decided in the cases under review,
14,447, or nearly 4o per cent, refer
red to procedure ''or other matters
not involving the merits of the dis
putes" is pretty good evidence that,
the land over, less lax method of ex-
animation should prevail and through
an abler Bar save millions to the
public at large.
But in addition to mere ability the
great practitioner must have moral
qualities of the highest order. An ex
animation may measure mans in
te1lect, but cannot sound his heart or
fathom his conscience. But there is
no way of getting over this difficulty.
The Bench and Bar associations are
doing the best they can, and so far as
they can go are entitled to common
support.-LancaStey { (Pa.) Examiner.