Thomas Leaming

LINE WHICH SEPARATES THEM FROM THE BAR—SOLICITOR A BUSINESS MAN—FAMILY SOLICITORS—GREAT CITY FIRMS OF SOLICITORS—THE NUMBER OF SOLICITORS IN ENGLAND AND WALES—TENDENCY TOWARD ABOLISHING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BARRISTER AND SOLICITOR—SOLICITORS WEAR NO DISTINCTIVE DRESS EXCEPT IN COUNTY COURTS—SOLICITORS' BAGS.

The line which separates solicitors from the Bar—the barristers—is difficult for an American to fully appreciate, for in our country it does not exist. The solicitor, or attorney, is a man of law business—not an advocate. A person contemplating litigation must first go to a solicitor, who guides his conduct by advice in the preliminary stages, or occasionally retains a barrister to give a written opinion upon a concrete question of law. The solicitor conducts all the negotiations or threats which usually precede a lawsuit and if compromise is impossible he brings a suit and retains a junior barrister by handing him a brief, which consists of a written narrative of the controversy, with copies of all papers and correspondence—in short, the facts of the case—and which states on its back the amount of the barrister's fee. The brief is engrossed or type-written on large-sized paper with very broad margins for notes, and is folded only once and lengthwise so as to make a packet fifteen by four inches.

All Englishmen of substance, and all firms and corporations, have their regular solicitors and the relation is frequently handed down from generation to generation. It is, of course, unusual except in large corporations to have a permanent barrister, because the solicitor selects one from time to time, as the occasion requires, and the client is rarely even consulted in the choice. When an Englishman speaks of his lawyer, he always means his solicitor and if he wishes to impress his auditor with the seriousness of his legal troubles, he adds that his lawyer has been obliged to take the advice of counsel—perhaps of a K. C.

Hence, the solicitor, unlike the barrister, is not ambitious for fame, nor does he worry because he can not become the Attorney-General or a judge; his mind is intent upon the pounds, shillings and pence of his calling. He may seek business, which the barrister can not do, and he is something of a banker, often a promoter. Some solicitors, especially those practicing at Liverpool, are admiralty men, others are adepts in the organization of corporations and in litigation arising concerning them and there are many other specialties. Some are men of the highest grade—particularly those employed by big companies or by families with large estates.

The venerable family solicitor of the novel and stage—that custodian of private estates and secrets who appears in all domestic crises, warning the wayward son, comforting the daughter whose affections are misplaced and succoring the gambling father, is sufficiently familiar. The worldly experience, which this kindly old gentleman brings from his musty office, is invaluable to his clients.

The large City firms of solicitors, on the other hand, occupy spacious suites of offices and maintain elaborate organizations like modern banks, with scores of clerks distributed in many departments, whose duties are so specialized that no one of them has much grasp of the business as a whole. The name of such a firm, appearing as sponsor for an extensive financial project, carries weight in the business world and its heads enjoy generous incomes, besides being men of much importance upon whom the honor of knighthood is sometimes conferred.

In all England and Wales only about 17,000 solicitors took out annual certificates last year. This indicates the number of offices and does not include clerks (many of whom have been admitted to practice as solicitors), nor those who, for one reason or another, do not practice. Instead of being concentrated, like the barristers, in the Inns of Court in London, solicitors are scattered all over the town and throughout the Kingdom itself. Some, especially in the minor towns or poorer quarters of London, are in a small way of business and must earn rather a precarious living. Others are of a still lower class and seek business of a more or less disreputable character by devious methods, but all are supposed to have been carefully educated in the law and are answerable to their Society and to the courts for questionable practices.

The division of the profession between the solicitors and the Bar is no doubt a survival in modern, or socialistic, England of aristocratic conditions which it is the tendency of the times to weaken, if not eventually to abolish. It is somewhat hard upon the solicitor of real ability to be confined to a limited field and to feel that, no matter how great his powers and acquirements, it is impossible to rise to the best position in his profession without abandoning his branch and beginning all over again in the barrister's ranks.

In associating with solicitors, one can not fail to be struck by their attitude towards barristers, as a class, which is hardly flattering to the latter; they frequently allude somewhat lightly to them as though they were useless ornaments and as if such a division of the profession were rather unnecessary. Upon asking whether the distinction exists in America, they receive the information that it does not with evident approval.

The advantages, however, of the separation of the functions of the solicitor from those of the barrister are distinctly felt in the superior skill, as trial lawyers, developed by the restriction of court practice to the limited membership of the Bar, which would hardly exist if the practice were distributed over the whole field of both branches of the profession. Then, too, the small number of persons composing the Bar enables greater control by the benchers over their professional conduct, and helps to maintain a high standard of ethics and the feeling of esprit de corps. Moreover, the Bar is not distracted from the science, by contact with the business, of the law and it is saved from the contaminating effect of participation in the sordid details of litigation. At the same time, this very condition may be calculated to develop in the average barrister, as distinguished from one of real ability, an attitude approaching dilettanteism.

If the division of the profession ever ceases to exist, the change will no doubt come about by the gradual encroachment of the solicitors' branch upon the Bar. Already solicitors possess the right of audience in the county courts, the limit of whose jurisdiction is constantly being increased, with the result of developing a species of solicitor-advocate, whose functions are very similar to those of the barrister. The more this progresses, the greater will be the number of solicitors who will become known as court practitioners, and whose services will be sought by the public and even by other solicitors, providing an existing act forbidding the latter is repealed.

While such is the drift in England, there is at the same time a tendency in America to approach English conditions in the evolution of the law firm composed of lawyers of whom some are known as distinctively trial lawyers, while the other members devote themselves to the business of the law, and indeed one now occasionally hears of such partnerships designating one of their number as "counsel" to the firm—which is, perhaps, an affectation.

Solicitors often become barristers—sometimes eminent ones, for they have an opportunity to study other barristers' methods, and have acquired a knowledge of affairs. Of course they must first retire as solicitors and enter one of the Inns for study. The late Lord Chief Justice of England began his career as an Irish solicitor.

Solicitors wear no distinctive dress (except a gown when in the county court, as will be explained hereafter) but attire themselves in the conventional frock or morning coat and silk hat which is indispensable for all London business men. They all, however, carry long and shallow leather bags, the shape of folded briefs, which are usually made of polished patent leather.