Court Opinion

ID: 9778302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:59:44.848645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:07.470066
License: Public Domain

MR. HOUGHTON, dissenting: From certain statements and conclusions in the opinion of the majority of the committee, I respectfully dissent. I do not agree that the criticized statements contained in Opinions 33, 50, and 185 relating to the conducting of litigation by a lawyer in which one of his partners has been or may be a material witness, are wrong or should be departed from. Neither do I agree that it is proper for one partner to be a witness and another the advocate in a trial even in cases where the lawyer acting as a witness lias long and detailed familiarity with the details of the matter in litigation, so that his withdrawal may necessarily deprive his client of knowledge and experience of irreplaceable value. I am firmly of the opinion that no lawyer should be both witness and advocate, excepting under those circumstances recognized or permitted by existing Canons, and I am further of the opinion that the existing Canons should not be amended to justify the conclusion reached by the majority opinion. If we start with the premise that it is improper for a lawyer to be both a witness and an advocate in a contested ease, then it is my firm opinion that his law partner should likewise be barred from so doing. The functions of a witness and an advocate should not be carried out by the same person. The function of a witness is to tell the facts as he recalls them in answer to questions. The function of an advocate is that of a partisan. Cation 19 provides in effect that, except as to formal matters, when a lawyer is a witness for liis client, he should leave the trial of the case for other counsel. This Canon has been construed in committee Opinions 33, 50, and 185, to prohibit one partner from acting as a witness and another partner as an advocate in a contested case. The Canon itself is merely a crystallization of recognized views of the bar prevailing for many years. In the case of Roys v. First National Bank, 183 Wis. 10, where the court had under consideration the matter of the. propriety of an attorney in a case appearing as a witness to contested facts, the court called attention to Canon 19 and stated: This rule is not to be allowed simply because the American Bar Association has adopted it, but with better reason because it states ethical considerations that must appeal to every lawyer as sound. A lawyer has a retainer — as a witness lie is not entitled to such. He will find it hard to disassociate his relation to his client as a lawyer and his relation to the party as a witness. This case bears witness of that fact. The soundness of the Canon is evidenced by many opinions of various courts. Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, in relating the fact that the solicitor general who was conducting the prosecution against Sir Thomas More, offered himself as a witness for the Crown, said that he did it to his eternal disgrace, and to the eternal disgrace of the court which permitted such an outrage on decency. Stones v. Byron, 4 Dowl. & L. 393, Note. In the case of Alger v. Merritt, 16 Iowa 121, the Iowa court held that no attorney having a just coneeption of his true and proper position will willingly unite the character of counsel and witness in the same case, stating in effect that experience has shown that those who, on repeated occasions, allow themselves to be thus used, are certain to feel most keenly the consequences of their indiscretion, and that such testimony might even he excluded, not because the source of proof is regarded as unreliable, but because public policy and the integrity and welfare of the profession dictate that no one should be at the same time both advocate and witness for his client. In the case of Grindle v. Grindle, 240 Ill. 148, 88 N. E. 473, the court condemned the conduct of an attorney who had assumed the double burden of acting as solicitor in a ease and furnishing the evidence necessary to success. In an early Pennsylvania case, Frear v. Drinker, 8 Pa. 520, the court said it was a highly indecent practice for an attorney to examine witnesses, address a jury and give evidence to contradict the witnesses. Many courts have held that it is the duty of an attorney to withdraw from the case as soon as he learns that there is a necessity for him to be a witness therein. I believe that it is the unanimous opinion of the Bar and courts passing on this question that it is improper for an attorney to be both witness and counsel in a contested case. Is the practice to be condemned any less because a partner of the attorney witness is the advocate in the case? In Opinion 33, rendered March- 2, 1931, it is stated: . . . The relations of partners in a law firm are so close that the firm, and all the members thereof, are barred from accepting any employment, that any one member of the firm is prohibited from taking. The reason for the ruling was because of the close relationships of the partners in a law firm. In Opinion 50, rendered December 14, 1931, it is stated: ... As the lawyer cannot properly accept employment in any matter in which he knows he will be a material witness for the party seeking to employ him, his partner cannot properly accept employment from that party. Likewise, anything which requires a lawyer to withdraw from a case requires that his partners withdraw. It is my opinion that the functions of a witness and an advocate should not be carried out by the same party, nor by different members of the same firm. A law partnership is in reality an entity. The members are bound by a partnership agreement. Any act of the one binds the partnership. I believe that the same reasons that bar one member of a firm from acting as a witness and counsel in the samo case apply to all the partners as well. The witness, being a member of the firm, shares in the monetary rewards of his partners who are the advocates, and he, being a member of the firm, is lawyer and advocate. On the other hand, if one of the partners is a witness, the same firm is acting in dual capacity of witness and advocate. The majority opinion attempts to justify such conduct in case a judge permits it. This to my mind does not An any way affect the propriety of the act of counsel. I do not believe the practice is made proper by consent or permission of the trial judge. The function of the judge should be limited to passing on whether the circumstances of the particular case bring it within the exceptions of the Canons. It may he, as pointed out in the majority opinion, that it might he desirable from a standpoint of the successful conduct of the case that one member of the firm act as witness and another as the advocate in cases where the partners have represented the client from the outset and have knowledge and experience gained from the relationship of attorney and client. These facts, in my opinion, do not alter or affect in any degree the reasons for the prohibitions of the Canon. The partners must elect whether they are to be in the case as witnesses or as advocates. Election really should be reserved for the client. If he elects to have his attorney act as his witness, he gets the full benefit of the attorney’s knowledge of the facts. I do not believe that the client would suffer any hardship in most cases, because he is required to obtain a new advocate. In any event, the proper administration of justice should not be affected by the zeal of an advocate or his partner who insists on having the members of one firm act in the repugnant capacity of witness and advocate. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.