The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-08-19
VANISHING PRACTICE OF LAWYERS.

observer OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS So : 49,
Kansas City Journal. that the great
changes which have taken place in our
business organizations have extended
their influence over the professions I'M
til fl can almost be said that the equip
ment which was deemed sufficient a
few years ago is no equipment at all
in the present day. Perhaps the era
OF consolidation has not affected all Of
the professions, but certainly 1t has
affected some of them to an impor-
tant degree. as. for example, that Of
the law"
In a spring issue of the Cosmopolitan
magazine Mr.. John Brisben Walker
traced out some of the changes which
have been taking place in the practice
of this profession. and showed how the
commercial developments were con-
nected with them. A few years ago the
properties now owned and controlled by
| the United States Steel corporation
were under perhaps ten thousand diff
ferent ownerships Then these business
enterprises were giving employment in
a greater or less degree to some thou
sands of lawyers. Naturally, too, the
keen competition was giving rise to
quarrels. to bad selling, poor collec-
lions and all the untoward incidents
| which invoke the aid of the law, and
no small part of the profit Of these
concerns regularly found it's way into
| the pockets of the lawyers.
| Now the United States Steel corpora
ton. has well organized legal depart
ment. Its members are salaried, not
so much to win law suits as to prevent
the causes of litigation. The iron in
dustry, which formerly gave innumer-
| able fees to the legal profession, now,
under consolidation, gives employment
| to a very few high-grade legal advisers
whose business it is to keep the affairs
of the company out of the courts, in
stead of rushing them in for fees, as
was formerly the case. And the chang
ed conditions illustrated in this exam
pie may be found in all the divisions of
our commercial life, tending every
where to reduce the business of the
courts and concentrate the practice in
to the hands of a few. Mr.. Walker
sums up the situation by stating that
under the new order a young man de- |
Gliding to enter the legal profession |
must choose between three classes. He
can join with the rapidly diminishing
number of those who use the law as |,
a club with which to hold up the for |
tunate and unfortunate of those en-
gagged in the business world; he can
strive for a place among the limited |
number of great attorneys who deal !
with big interests and practice the pro-
fession with dignity and fairness. or
he can prepare himself for the third
class described by Mr.. Walker as fol-
scarcely to be generally known. But
the developments of the past ten years
have already produced many distin-
guished examples. The new division
is that of the counselor who becomes
connected with business affairs. His
first duty is to prevent litigation. In
the second place, he familiariZes him
self with every department and keeps
in touch with the officers and all the
affairs. Less technical in
his training, and perhaps for that rea-
son more capable of taking bird's-eye
view of the company's affairs than
those more Immediately interested, he
becomes an efficient adviser in many
directions"
The lawyers themselves have been
There is a marked tendency" says
Mr. Walker, "to organize great legal
firms where two or threee able men,
the business of large cor
porations, are able to employ many
lawyers not as partners but as paid as
sistants. There are law firms which
have on their rolls more than one hun
dred persons, of whom one-half have
been admitted to practice. Three or
four names only are known to the pub
lie, and these reap the fees of sue
cess. The others are, to all intents and
purposes, clerks, drawing not even high
salaries, because the universities are
turning out lawyers in such endless
profusion; the supply so far exceeds .
the demand that many able men are
compelled to take these underpaid posi-
tons"
Another cause tending to decrease
the practice of lawyers is the effort
made everywhere of recent years to re-
move the causes of litigation. In Colo
RADIO. for example, a simple form of
deed has been prescribed by law by
use OF which almost any person can
make proper conveyance without the
assistance of lawyer. In all of the
cities trust companies have been form
ed which take over the guardianship
of estates and thus deprive the legal