II. The duties which a lawyer owes to the court, to his professional brethren, and to his client.

There is, perhaps, no profession, after that of the sacred ministry, in which a high-toned morality is more imperatively necessary than that of the law. There is certainly, without any exception, no profession in which so many temptations beset the path to swerve from the line of strict integrity; in which so many delicate and difficult questions of duty are continually arising. There are pitfalls and mantraps at every step, and the mere youth, at the very outset of his career, needs often the prudence and self-denial, as well as the moral courage, which belong commonly to riper years. High moral principle is his only safe guide; the only torch to light his way amidst darkness and obstruction. It is like the spear of the guardian angel of Paradise:

No falsehood can endure

Touch of celestial temper, but returns

Of force to its own likeness.

The object of this Essay is, to arrive at some accurate and intelligible rules by which to guide and govern the conduct of professional life. It would not be a difficult task to declaim in general propositions-to erect a perfect standard and leave the practitioner to make his own application to particular cases. It is a difficult task, however, as it always is in practice, to determine the precise extent of a principle, so as to know when it is encountered and overcome by another-to weigh the respective force of duties which appear to come in conflict. In all the walks of life, men have frequently to do this; in none so often as at the Bar.

The responsibilities, legal and moral, of the lawyer, arise from his relations to the court, to his professional brethren, and to his client. It is in this order that it is proposed to consider and discuss the various topics which grow out of this subject.

The oath directed by law in this state to be administered upon the admission of an atttorney to the bar, "to behave himself in the office

of attorney according to the best of his learning and ability, and with all good fidelity, as well to the court as to the client; that he will use no falsehood, nor delay any man's cause for lucre or malice," presents a comprehensive summary of his duties as a practitioner.1

1 This oath seems first to have been prescribed by the Act of Assembly, passed August 22d 1752: “An act for regulating and establishing fees." (1 Smith's Laws 218.) It has been copied into the revised Act of 14th April 1834, s. 69 (Pamphlet Laws 354), with the addition of the clause to "support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this Commonwealth." In England, by the Stat. 4 Henry IV., c. 18 (A. D. 1402), it was provided, "that all attorneys shall be examined by the justices, and by their discretion their names put in the roll, and they that be good and virtuous, and of good fame, shall be received and sworn well and truly to serve in their offices, and especially that they make no suit in a foreign country." The present oath or affirmation is, that he "will truly and honestly demean himself in the practice of an attorney, according to the best of his knowledge and ability." Stat. 2 Geo. II., c. 23 (A. D. 1729); stat. 6 & 7 Vict. c. 83. The qualification of a sergeant-at-law, is given at large in 2 Inst. 213; and in the valuable old book, "The Mirror of Justices," chap. 2, sec. 5, it is said

Fidelity to the court, fidelity to the client, fidelity to the claims of truth and honor: these are the matters comprised in the oath of office.

It is an oath of office, and the practitioner, the incumbent of an office-an office in the administration of justice'-held by authority from those who represent in her tribunals the majesty of the commonwealth, a majesty truly more august than that of kings or emperors. It is an office, too, clothed with many privileges-privileges, some of which are conceded to no other class or profession. It is there

2

that "every countor is chargeable by the oath, that he shall do no wrong nor falsity, contrary to his knowledge, but shall plead for his client the best he can, according to his understanding."

1 Hurst's case, 1 Levins 75; 1 Sid. 94, 152; Raym. 56, 94; 1 Keb. 349, 354, 387; Waters v. Whittemore, 22 Barb. 595.

"An attorney at

2 See Austin's case, 5 Rawle 203. law," says C. J. Gibson, "is an officer of the court. The terms of the oath, exacted of him at his admission to the bar, prove him to be so;" "you shall behave yourself in your office of attorney," &c. Again: it is declared in the Constitution, article 1st, sec. 18 (art. 2, sec. 6, of the

fore that the legislature have seen fit to require that there should be added to the solem

Constitution of 1874), that "no member of Congress, or other person holding any office (except attorney-at-law, and in the militia), shall be a member of either house," &c., which is a direct constitutional recognition. Prior to the Act of 14th April 1834, which expressly required from them an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, attorneys-at-law were invariably held to be within the provisions of art. 6, sec. 3, of the Constitution of the United States, and of art. 8, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, requiring all officers, executive and judicial, to take the oath to support those constitutions respectively. In Wood's case, 1 Hopkins 6, solicitors in chancery were held to be officers, within the meaning of a similar clause in the Constitution of New York. "The admission of an attorney, solicitor or counsellor," says the opinion in that case, “is a general appointment to conduct causes before the courts: this station, thus conferred by public authority, has its peculiar powers, privileges and duties, and thus becomes an office in the administration of justice." Leigh's case, 1 Munford 468, in which it was held, that attorneys are not officers, within the meaning of the statute of Virginia, requiring all persons holding any office, or place, under the Commonwealth, to take an oath against duelling, does not perhaps conflict with this view. The case of Byrne's Admr's v. Stewart's Admr's, 3 Dessaus. 478, may, how