San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-09-04

iority of lawmakers are lawyers "by
profession" they are lawyers i'll addi-
ton to being Lawmakers.
But the people get their impressions
of the legal profession, not entirely from
the acts and conduct Of the men who
make the laws, but from the profcs-
sional tendencies of the men who prac-
tice law before the bar And the pro-
fessional standard of IN individual law
yer practicing before the bar is neces-
sarlly no higher than that OF "the law
| itself.
Take the case of lawyer on either
side in any case. He may have his own
conception of Justice "in the premises, ="
and it may easily be contrary 20 the re-
qurements of "the law When the
Judge, interpreting "the-law,' reads his
charge to the jury, is the lawyer whose
client is favored going TO say TO the
court: "Your Honor. l know this to be
the law, but l don't think it just, and
therefore l must refuse to accept the
advantage which the law wrongfully, i'll
my private opinion. gives to my client:'
Much OF the feeling discerned by Jus
tice Butler is due to lawyers fidelity to
''the law" or rather to laws that do not
fulfill the common-sense requirements of
justice. Consider the case of a law. or
of an orthodox method of procedure,
which attaches greater weight to tech
nicalities than to vital realities. Is a
lawyer going to scorn the advantages
which "the law" accords him or his
client, and lose his case merely as 4
means OF registering protest against
the law and of demonstrating to the
public that he is not technical, indirect
in conduct, and lacking in honestly"
Consider too, a. case wherein Congress
enacts law which, in the opinion OF
the most thoroughly upright lawyer who
might be charged with the duty of en-
forcing the laws of the land, is contrary
to fundamental principle of this coun-
try's form OF government. What is that
lawyer going to do when such a law is
violated? Will he say that Congress
overstepped its authority, and that he
will have nothing to do with the enforce
ment of the law?
In general, the blame for the feeling
which Justice Butler mentions should
be placed upon "the law upon the
modern tendency of. governments tc get
away from fundamental principles of
justice-rather than upon lawyers as
class" If lawyers as class" are
he'd in popular suspicion, ii is because
they have no choice between practicing
'the' law as it is and "the law" as they
think it ought to be; they must prac-
tice the law as it is, or not practice
at all. And because "the law" in actual
ity often makes for injustice, lawyers as
a class are suspected of reprehensible
personal qualities by people who identity
them with "the law"
/ Tn final analysis, the blame attaches
to the lawmakers and to people who
continue to elect as their legislative rep
resentatives men who are either ignor-
ant or INSCRIPTIONS.
However, the personally upright law
yers of the country could bring to bear
much pressure to remedy the condition
of which complaint is made They can
not do that merely by practicing law
before the bar; in that capacity they
must practice "the law" as it is, and
cannot practice it as they think it ought
to be. There is already on foot a coun-
try7wide movement on the part of high
minded lawyers to bring about a genuine
reform in the legal field-in' the general
system of making, interpreting, admin
istering and enforcing laws. If that
movement should be pressed to prop
er conclusion. then not only would, the
legal profession be saved from the feel
ing OF which member OF the United
States Supreme Court has taken un-
official cognizance, but perhaps some
of the methods of the country's high
tribunals would undergo a house-clean-
ing favorable to the ends of justice.