Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
The oe ligature has been transcribed as [oe].
A table of contents, though not present in the original, has been provided below:
PREFACE. INTRODUCTION. PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. APPENDIX. No. I. No. II. No. III.
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS.
AN ESSAY ON PROFESSIONAL ETHICS.
by
GEORGE SHARSWOOD.
Id non eo tantum, quod si vis illa dicendi malitiam instruxerit, nihil sit publicis privatisque rebus perniciosius eloquentia: sed nos quoque ipsi, qui pro virile parte conferre aliquid ad facultatem dicendi conati sumus, pessime mereamur de rebus humanis, SI LATRONI COMPAREMUS HAEC ARMA, NON MILITI. QUINCT. DE INST. OR.
Second Edition.
Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., Law Booksellers and Publishers, No. 535 Chestnut Street. 1860.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Penn'a.
C. Sherman & Son, Printers, S. W. Cor. Seventh and Cherry Streets, Philadelphia.
TO
MY HONORED MASTER,
JOSEPH R. INGERSOLL, LL.D.,
INSCRIBED
AS A
TESTIMONY OF
RESPECT AND GRATITUDE.
PREFACE.
The following Essay was originally published under the title of "A Compend of Lectures on the Aims and Duties of the Profession of the Law, delivered before the Law Class of the University of Pennsylvania." A portion of it had been read by the author as an Introductory Lecture at the opening of the Fifth Session of the Law Department of that Institution, October 2d, 1854. The young gentlemen, alumni, and students of the school, who were present on that occasion, requested a copy for publication, in order that each of them might possess a memento of their connection with the Institution. The author preferred to publish the entire Compend than merely a part of it. He hesitated much in doing so, because the questions discussed are difficult, and opinions upon them variant, and he could scarcely hope that he had in every case succeeded in just discrimination. A review of the matter now, when a second edition has been called for, has suggested, however, no important change in the principles advanced, though a few additions have been made, some inaccuracies corrected, and an introduction upon the importance of the profession, in a public point of view, prefixed.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: An Essay on Professional Ethics by Sharswood
- 2: Legislation is indeed a nobler work than even jurisprudence
- 3: All the mala prohibita are not mala in se
- 4: And therefore unwise and unjust
- 5: Not within the legitimate sphere of legislation
- 6: The abstractionist would at once demolish it
- 7: Is intrusted necessarily to lawyers
- 8: More weighty words than these have never
- 9: Without noticing his own previous dictum to the contrary
- 10: Shelley was properly overruled
- 11: They are always retrospective
- 12: And available in favor of heirs and devisees
- 13: Is the legitimate province of Jurisprudence
- 14: As well to the court as to the client
- 15: Or for a juror to permit any person to speak with him
- 16: Ad questiones juris respondeant judices
- 17: Which can only satisfy the truly conscientious practitioner
- 18: It is a discretion to be wisely and justly exercised
- 19: And guilt cannot be deprived of it
- 20: But that of the Attorney General
- 21: And what is believed to be an unrighteous claim
- 22: Phillips was accused of having endeavored
- 23: When a client employs an attorney
- 24: He ought to make such affidavit
- 25: As completely identified with his client
- 26: To relieve him from the consequences of his inattention
- 27: With a view of bringing clients to his office
- 28: Beginning with the fundamental law of estates and tenures
- 29: The relation of patron and client
- 30: The Emperor Augustus afterwards re enacted the Cincian law
- 31: And clients are really the patrons of their attorneys
- 32: Is champerty in its most odious form
- 33: To discuss the legality of contingent fees
- 34: It is an undue encouragement to litigation
- 35: When the relation of solicitor and client exists
- 36: The biographies of eminent lawyers
- 37: For one of the most beautiful of the elementary treatises
- 38: And retarded his earlier professional studies
- 39: Courvoisier also suddenly recognized her
- 40: Some time ago I was dining with Lord Denman
- 41: The unabated kindness of three of the greatest men
- 42: Which I knew was attributable to Courvoisier
- 43: Adolphus called a witness named Sarah Mancer
- 44: Repetition repetition repetition
- 45: Which may be followed by Sullivan's Lectures on Feudal Law
- 46: Or Lord Coke's Commentary upon Littleton's Tenures
- 47: Sugden on Vendors and Purchasers may then follow
- 48: Bynkershoek Questiones Publici Juris
- 49: They were termed apprenticii ad legem
- 50: And dignity of a serjeant at law
- 51: That attorneys are not officers
- 52: Having jurisdiction over the subject matter
- 53: As between the client and the attorney
- 54: They may do by their serjeants
- 55: As one of the serjeants at law
- 56: Who best understands Coke upon Littleton
- 57: Which Pasquier had not yet examined
- 58: That champerty is an offence at common law
- 59: An agreement made by a client with his counsel
