University of Michigan Law School - Quad Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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ground. llc is not responsible to any one for his choice of clients. 'l'liat is. hc has thc right to engage his service to one and not to another. ln making his selection, or rather in determining Whether he will accept a retainer, hc must decide as a matter affecting his professional honor, whether the client has rights to defend, Or 'EO obtain. by legal proceedingsg and it is his duty to defend his client in his rights, not in his 'wrongs A lawyer may, however, gin against the code of legal ethics in the methods which he adopts to defend his client in his rights. If he abuse the process of the court: if he resort to tricks, artilice or fraud, if he connive at or permit his client to use false testimony, or does any other dishonor- able act, he stands condemned before that high court ofymorals, whose unwritten law the profession is bound to obey. The jealousy with which the ethics of the profession are guarded is well exempli- fied in the case of Mrs. Rives, who attempted to establish her claim to royal lineage in England, and who had instituted a suit against the Attorney General. Dr. Smith appearedfor her, and in address- ing the jury, was just beginning to say: On my honor I believe my client's case to be well founded , when the Lord Chief justice interfered, and peremptorily said: I cannot allow the learned counsel to pledge his honor on his own belief. To do so were a violation of the rules of the profession, and a dishonor to counsel . Dr. Smith apologized. ' g It is, however, in criminal cases that the casuist summons the lawyer before the forum of conscience and declares that the accused must be guilty, or not guilty, of a criminal offense, that, if guilty, the advocate who undertakes his defence offends against right and justice, assails the Commonwealth by assisting criminals to escape merited punishment, and jeapordizes the peace of the community by turning free a depraved culprit unit to associate with the law abiding citizen. These results certainly do follow thegsuccessful efforts of a lawyer in defence of a person who has committed crime and has become one of the criminal class. Then shall the accused go undefended? Is not every person accused of crime presumed to be innocent until proved guilty, and does not the presumption attach as a shield for innocence until the verdict of guiltyiis ren- dered by the jury? If the lawyer is not to-undertake the defence of persons accused of crime, what becomes of those constitutional provisions which guarantee to every person accused of crime the I2

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is in favor of the defendant, and it then follows that the wrong becomes the right side of the question, and the lawyer on the other side is the one who evinced a reckless disregard for truth. To sum it all up. There is no difference between the vocation of a lawyer and that of any other person whose pursuit rests upon discretion and the uncertainty of the outcome of untried events. The moral law applies to all ali-ke. Do justly, act honorably, so as at all times to preserve your own self respect, and neither your associates nor the world at large will have occasion to challenge your moral worth, or daily walk and conversation. V k 1, W., CHAMPLIN.