Court Opinion

ID: 9607323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:57:38.159723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:38.403696
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ADAIR,
specially concurring:
I concur in the' reversal of the trial court’s order from which *7this appeal was taken and in the setting aside and vacating of the default taken and entered against the defendant.
Counsel for plaintiffs and counsel for defendant all reside and maintain their law offices in Great Falls, Montana. While the dignity and importance of the Profession of the Law, in a public point of view can hardly be over estimated, yet nothing is more certain than that one engaged in the active practice of law will find, in the long run, the good opinion of his brothers in the profession of far greater importance than that of the general public at large, for it is there among his fellow lawyers that the foundation of the reputation of every truly great lawyer will be discovered to have been laid.
In Sharswood’s “Professional Ethics,” 5th Ed., published by the American Bar Association, 1907, at pp. 73 to 75, it is said:
“A very great part of a man’s comfort, as well as of his success at the Bar, depends upon his relations with his professional brethren. Writh them he is in daily necessary intercourse, and he must have their respect and confidence, if he wishes to sail along in smooth water. * * * ‘Wbioso diggeth a pit,’ says the wise man, ‘shall fall therein, and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.’ If he should succeed, he will have gained with his success not the admiration and esteem, but the distrust and dislike of one of his associates as long as he lives. He should never unnecessarily have a personal difficulty with a professional brother. * * * Let him shun most carefully the reputation of a sharp practitioner. Let him be liberal to the slips and oversights of his opponent wherever he can do so, and in plain cases not shelter himself behind the instructions of his client. The client has no right to require him to be illiberal — and he should throw up his brief sooner than do what revolts against his own sense of what is demanded by honor and propriety. * * * The good opinion and confidence of the members of the same profession, like the King’s name on the field of battle, is a ‘tower of strength’; it is the title of legitimacy.”
Be not too ready to demand your “pound of flesh” even though under the law, it may be your due.
*8Be not too. hasty in taking the default of a litigant represented by counsel, nor too tenacious in hanging, on to such an advantage once gained. Next time it may be your client who is in default and you may be the petitioner for relief.