of his client or the approbation of the court.' To come before the court with a revelation of facts, damning to his client's case, as a ground for retiring from it, would be a plain breach of the confidence reposed in him, and the law would seal his lips. How then is he to acquit

2

1 An attorney is not compelled to appear for any one unless he takes his fee or backs the warrant. Anon., 1 Salk. 87. The attorney cannot determine the relation himself, to his client's detriment: Love v. Hall, 3 Yerger 408. When a solicitor appointed by a party has acted as such, he cannot be displaced by the appointment of another, without an order of the court: Mumford & Murray, 1 Hopkins 369. After an attorney has entered his name upon the record, he cannot withdraw it without leave of the court; and until so withdrawn the service of a citation upon him in case of appeal is sufficient: United States v. Curry, 6 Howard (U. §.) Rep. 106.

The relation of attorney and client is one of mutual trust, confidence, and good-will; and any conduct on the part of the attorney which must necessarily put an end to them, justifies the client in terminating the relation by notice to the attorney: Arrington v. Sneed, 18 Texas 135.

2 A counsel, attorney, or solicitor, will in no case be permitted, even if he should be willing to do so, to divulge any matter which has been communicated to him

himself? Lord Brougham, in his justly celebrated defence of the Queen, went to very ex

in professional confidence. This is not his privilege, but the privilege of the client, and none but the client can waive it: Jenkinson v. The State, 5 Blackford 465; Benjamin v. Coventry, 19 Wendell 353; Parker v. Carter, 4 Munf. 273; Wilson v. Troup, 7 Johns. Ch. Rep. 25; Crosby v. Berger, 11 Paige 377; Bank of Utica v. Mersereau, 3 Barbour Ch. Rep. 528; Aiken v. Kilburne, 27 Maine 252; Crisler v. Garland, 11 Smedes & Marshall 136; Chew v. The Farmers' Bank of Maryland, 2 Maryland Ch. Decis. 231. It will be found in some of these cases that though the counsel declined to be engaged for the client, yet the facts communicated were held confidential; the only exception recognised being where a purpose to perpetrate in futuro a felony, or an action malum in se, was disclosed: Bank of Utica v. Mersereau, 3 Barbour Ch. Rep. 528. In Moore v. Bray, 10 Barr 519, it was held that communications of the object for which an assignment of a mortgage was made, to a counsel concerned for the assignee, were privileged; although no question then arose as to the object of the assignment, and the counsel considered the communication in the light of a casual conversation. "The circle of protection," said Bell, J., "is not so narrow as to exclude communications a professional person may deem unimportant to the controversy, or the briefest and lightest talk the client may choose to indulge with his legal adviser, provided he regards him as such at the moment. To found

travagant lengths upon this subject; no doubt he was led by the excitement of so great an occasion to say what cool reflection and sober reason certainly never can approve. "An advocate," said he, "in the discharge of his duty knows but one person in all the world, and that person is his client. To save that client by all means and expedients, and at all hazards and costs to other persons, and among them to himself, is his first and only duty; and in performing this duty he must not regard the alarm, the torments, the destruction he may bring upon others. Separating the duty of a patriot from that of an advocate, he must go on, reckless of consequences: though it should be his unhappy lot to involve his country in confusion."

On the other hand, and as illustrative of the practical difficulty which this question pre

a distinction on such a ground would be to measure the safety of the confiding party by the extent of his intelligence and knowledge, and to expose to betrayal those very anxieties, which prompt those in difficulty to seek the ear of him in whom they trust in season and out of season."

sented to a man, with as nice a perception of moral duty as perhaps ever lived, it is said by Bishop Burnet, of Sir Matthew Hale: "If he saw a cause was unjust, he for a great while would not meddle further in it, but to give his advice that it was so; if the parties after that would go on, they were to seek another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice; if he found the cause doubtful or weak in point of law, he always advised his clients to agree their business. Yet afterwards he abated much of the scrupulosity he had about causes that appeared at first unjust, upon this occasion: there were two causes brought him, which by the ignorance of the party or their attorney, were so ill-represented to him that they seemed to be very bad; but he inquiring more narrowly into them, found they were really very good and just; so after this he slackened much of his former strictness of refusing to meddle in causes upon the ill circumstances that appeared in them at first."1

1 Burnet's Life of Hale, 1 Hale's Works 59, 60. "He began," says Lord Campbell," with the specious but im

It may be delicate and dangerous ground to tread upon to undertake to descend to particulars upon such a subject. Every case must, to a great degree, depend upon its own circumstances, known, peradventure, to the counsel alone; and it will often be hazardous to condemn either client or counsel upon what appears only. A hard plea-a sharp point-may subserve what is at bottom an honest claim, or just defence; though the evidence may not be within the power of the parties, which would make it manifest.

practicable rule of never pleading except on the right side, which would make the counsel to decide without knowing either facts or law, and would put an end to the administration of justice." 1 Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices 412. There is the following curious note by Baxter in Burnet's Life of Hale. "And indeed Judge Hale would tell me that Bishop Usher was much prejudiced against lawyers because the worst causes find their advocates; but that he and Mr. Selden had convinced him of the reasons of it to his satisfaction; and that he did by acquaintance with them believe that there were as many honest men among lawyers, proportionably, as among any profession of men in England (not excepting bishops or divines)." 1 Hale's Works 106.