Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-21
SHAME TO AMERICANS
Standards of Legal Profession
Denounced.
ILL-TRAINED LAWYERS
Legal Education in the District Of
Columbia.
ADDRESS BY DEAN w. R. VANCE
Lax Requirements for Candidates in
the District of Columbia-Need
for Congress to Act.
ADDRESS BY DEAN w. R. VANCE

OF the American lawyer, TO reckon the
measure of his success in performing
his great function. the intelligent Amer
lean must hang his head in deep humili-
alton. Bluntly put. the American law
yer has proved failure
These declarations were made by
Dean w r. Vance of the Law School of
George Washington University in an
address at the fall convocation of the
university, in the University Hall at 18th
and II streets, yesterday afternoon.
The trustees. faculty and students as
sembled in University Hall at 4:15
o'clock. The platform and walls were
decorated with American flags arranged
under the direction of Frederick d.
Owen: On the platform were Judge
Thomas H. Anderson. Dr. E. NJ Gallau-
Diet. Rev. Samuel Fl. Greene, William F.
Mattingly. Theodore w. Noyes and
Abram Lisner of the board of trustees,
Justice Harlan and Justice Brewer OF
the Supreme Court of the United States
and members of the faculties and OFF,
GERS of the university in academic dress.
After the invocation pronounced by
Rev. Dr. Richard d. Harlan, Prof. Will
liam r. Vance, dean of the law depart
ment of the university, spoke
Diplomas Presented.
After the address the following students
received their diplomas from the hands
of the president of the university: James
Houston Shrader, District of Columbia.
the degree of bachelor of arts; Abner
Beebe Dunn, Pennsylvania, the degree of
doctor of medicine; Antonio Cornelius
Gonzalez, jr, New York, the degree of
bachelor of laws: Frank Schley Hemmick
District of Columbia, the degree of bach
elor of laws, with distinctions; John Ad-
lum Sterrett, District of Columbia, TIE
degree of master of science.
President Needham expressed the great
qualification he felt in announcing that
the registration had reached the large
figure of LIB. an increase over the num-
Der registered at the same period last
year.
Legal Education in the District.
Legal Education in the District of Co
lumbia was the subject of the address
by Dean Vance. First pointing ont that
the number of law students in the District
for the school year of 1869 stands third
among all the states and territories in the
country, the speaker declared that at
least one-half of the students here so
therefore Washington has a responsible
ity to the whole country in the training
of its law students.
Are we, then. properly training these
hundreds of young men in our law
schools he continued In answering
this question intelligently driven
back to certain fundamental principles
and some most uncomfortable facts.
I'm no other free and civilized country
are the laws so i'll adm Mustered as in
these United States We lead the world
in most of the great struggles mankind
is making to rise on stepping stones OF
their dead selves to higher things In
machinery that reduces natural forces to
the service of men, in the reclamation
of waste places for the feeding of the
nations in agricultural processes, in
transport alton and in exploration and the
struggle for mastery of the air, American
genius and enterprise command the ad-
miration and gratitude of the world, but
In the administration of the law America
lags two generations behind the rest of
the civilized world. No constructive re-
forms of a comprehensive kind have been
seriously attempted since the days of
David Dudley Field, now passed a half
century and more. Our inefficient pro-
cedure in civil actions is reproach to
the nation and a disgrace to the bar,
while our procedure in criminal cases,
with it's enormous expense. its incredible
delays and it's frequent and gross mis-
carriages of justice, is a stencil in the
nostrils of the nations.
Ineffective Administration.
LAS to the ineffective administration of
criminal law, one need only refer to the
disgraceful number of lynchings, and
such humiliating exhibits as the Thaw
trial in New York and the Shea trial in
Chicago.
"Of course, it is true that we have had,
and have now, our great Judges and law
yers, men of great ability and learning,
who have approached their professional
duties with earnest and honest purpose,
and have deserved well of their country
for noble service rendered. Those lawyers
OF loitIer moral stature may protest and
urge reform, and banding themselves to-
gether in bar association committees put
forth well Worded and admirable codes of
legal ethics. but their voices are as voices
of those that call in the wilderness. The
scuffiing hordes of touters, runners, am
bulance chasers and legal sharks do not
pause in their trumped-up actions, their
suborning of testimony, their preying upon
the ignorant and unfortunate, long enough
even to listen to the would-be refOrmers
while the large and influential class of re-
spectacle, successful lawyers smile indul-
gently when they hear, and wonder how
any one can find the time to divert his at
tention from his growing business and
swelling fee book to consider such matters
as the interest of the public in the admin
istration of the law-and then turn again
to reaping the harvest that comes from
the dilatoryl and Anticipated procedure.
complacently. remarking that this same
procedure which veXes the public almost
which we enjoy from the accumulated
wisdom Of twenty generations of wise and
learned judges. Blessed legacy! One
might as we'll speak of the blessed legacy
of barnacles derived from a voyage of
10000 leagues at sea!
Blight on Legal Profession.
What. then, is the lesson of this dark
and distressing picture? 1t seems to me
that it is plain that he who runs may
read The legal profession in America is
blghted by two serious faults. The first
is a low moral tone manifesting itself, in
its worst form. in deliberate preying upon
the public. legal parasitism; and in it's
less repulsive form, in a selfish indffer-
ence to the deep public interest with
which the calling of the lawyer is af-
fected. The second is a lack of knoWl-
edge of the law as a science, as distin-
guished from knowledge of the law as
craft.
This condition of affairs cannot must
not. endure. These two dangerous de-
fects. affecting the great body of Ameri-
can lawyers: the low moral tone and the
inadequate knowledge of the law as a
science must be removed. And. it seems
to me, the way to accomplish this is pain
to see and open. The bar can scarcely be
expected to reform itself adequately. For
many of those who profess to practice
law adequate reform of our procedure
would mean professional suicide.
Unfortunately. for every Lincoln who
admitted to the bar unframed and unfit,
fta,.yx ri himself for a great