ATTORNEYS' BILLS.
IT is the glory of the British people to be humane. We- sympathize with every form of suffering, and throw our- protecting shield over the humblest of mankind as well as• princes and great ones of the earth. If Friglishmen merely went wild when a great rhetorician like Burke depicts the woes of a Marie Antoinette, if their blood stirred only when Russia threatened a Sultan, or Germany pillaged a King, we- would be content " to give Heaven thanks and make no boast of it." The calamities of the great appeal to the imagination, and the hardest heart sighs over Darius " fallen from his high estate and weltering in his blood." But that is some- thing more than a mere maudlin sentimentality which winces under every lash that falls on the negro's back, and makes Lord Shaftesbury the champion of the little chimneysweeps, nay, which does not stop with the limits of the human race, but envelopes even the brates themselves in its large charity. Every one has heard of Dick Martin's Act. " Thousands,' said Pope half a century ago, "Die and endow a college or a cat."
In this metropolis at the present moment there is an asylum where a night's lodging is provided for homeless dogs. Where shall we stop ? Who has not read Coleridgo's touching poem addressed to the poor little foals of an oppressed race ! Even donkeys excite a fellow feeling. It is possible, however, to carry the noblest sentiments of humanity beyond the boundaries fixed by prudence and good sense, and though among the warmest admirers of the Lord Chancellor, we venture to think that it is precisely in this direction that he is likely to be- allured both by his strongest and his weakest qualities. His active and self-reliant mind never fails to grasp a principle strongly, and never shrinks from carrying it out to its logical results, and these qualities make him the first jurist among the law lords, and perhaps in either House of Parliament. But then, on the other hand, there may possibly be a certain self- complacency with reference to his own ideas, a certain con- tempt for those of other men, and a certain desire to dazzle and astonish mankind, which may lead him to attempt what must after all be regarded as only a startling tour de force. $amenity is a beautiful, an ennobling quality ; but is it not carrying it to an extreme when you propose to protect at- torneys ? The principle of course is unassailable. We know people are very unreasonable. We know how when they are in a scrape they will hang on the lips of the family solicitor, how they will call on him at unseasonable hours and remain an unreasonable time, and bore him with their hopes and fears, and pester him with vindications of their moral conduct ; and when the danger is past, and it seems to them that per- haps it never was quite so great as they imagined, all these things pass from their minds as, according to Keats, shep- herds forget the "berried holly" when " tall chesnuts" keep away the sun of June. Then, when the bill comes in, they are virtuously indignant at the charge of six and eightpenoe for those comforting conversations, and shudder at the "rogue " who never writes a letter at less than three and fourpence. Indeed, the feeling is not confined to lawyers' bills. A man who offers for a farm always takes the tithe into account ; but is there a farmer living who ever paid tithes without a feeling that he had been " robbed? " Let our readers look into their own hearts, and ask themselves whether their feel- ings were altogether Christian when they last paid the doctor's bill. It is not merely that we are really a materially minded people,—that we cannot think that we have value for our money unless what we buy can be seen, and handled, and kept in store,—though that is in truth much. But it is a spite of fate that we wanted the lawyer or the doctor. All we get by the latter is to be reinstated in that robust health from which, if we had our deserts, we never ought to have fallen. All the former does is to ensure that the seller of the estate we buy does not cheat us, or to prevent a wicked neighbour from inflicting on us cruel wrong ; and we were ourselves so entirely free from blame, and it is so hard to pay for being guarded from other men's rascality. " Providence, the con- stitution of the universe !" stammers the philosopher ; but we know our duty too well to blame Providence, while there is no law, human or divine, to prevent a man from abusing the learned professions.
Therefore again we say that the Chancellor's principle is unassailable, and if the attorneys cannot get fairly remu- nerated unless they make bargains with their clients, then flat justitia. But is this liberty really necessary to them ? Have they not hitherto justified that presumption of law of which Lor&St. Leonards speaks, that they are quite able to take care of themselves. Of course if the lambs will dirty the streams, the wolves are entitled to protection. But since, if we may trust lEsop, they have such facilities for constituting themselves judges in their own cause, and are endowed by nature with such large capacity for promptly vindicating their rights, what can the wolves want with an Act of Par- liament? Is it contended that a taxed bill of costs does not fairly remunerate a solicitor for his trouble ? If so, let the scale of charges be raised. But the truth is that the difficulty of all professional men is to get business. So large an in- come and so good a position may be obtained for so small a .capital that the professions are overstocked, and men are tempted to revenge themselves on the clients that come for the shortcomings of the clients that do not. We maintain that an attorney whose time was fully occupied by profes- sional business, even if every bill he seat in was systemati- cally taxed, would live and live well.
The evils of paying men, not for their time and trouble, but by the length of the documents they draw, are patent and on the surface. There never lived a lawyer who would not be glad to escape from them if he could. But the open- market system is only applicable to dealings in which buyer and seller may be presumed to be equally good judges of the article sold. In a bargain between lawyer and client, all the knowledge is of necessity on one side, and even the lawyer beforehand knows so little what trouble a given conveyance or suit may cost him that he could not practically be blamed for simply getting everything out of his client that he could. We want to know how this would be likely to affect the poor and ignorant. Indeed let any man consider whether there is any kind of agency business which is or could be paid by esti- mating the trouble of the agent in each separate dealing. The remuneration is always by a commission. We admit that the present mode of estimating that commission is a bad one, and in conveyancing business we have no doubt that the proper substitute for it is a fee bearing a certain definite relation to the value of the property conveyed. In this respect the law of Scotland is in advance of our own. To litigious business it is clear that this system is not ap- plicable, and we suppose that Lord Westbury could not stoop to an enactment which did not affect all business alike. But that is an empty love of uniformity which would apply the same rule to things which are radically different. When a man buys property he is doing a voluntary aot, and if the cost of the conveyance can be ascertained beforehand he takes it into account in making his bargain.
But the plaintiff or defendant in a law-suit never seems, to himself at least, to have any choice. Prisoners really have none. A solicitor of some sort they must have, and you pro- pose to these poor people to make a bargain with him. The ghosts on their way to Hades might as well have been put to bargain with Charon. How can the attorney tell the amount of trouble he will have or the expense to which he may be put in hunting up evidence ? Poor Mrs. Hatch had to pay forty pounds, which she could very ill afford, for the defence of her husband. We do not say that there was any negli- gence shown in the defence, but we know it was unsuccess- ful, and that her counsel in the action for negligence loudly declared that all that was done in the defence could not possibly have been estimated by the taxing master at a ten- pound note. No doubt the existing system tempts solicitors to be prolix. Will that be a better which tempts them to do as little for their clients as they can without incurring the- blame of absolute neglect ? Or are the class of attorneys who bring trumpery actions of assault and libel on the terms of taking no costs unless they get them from the other side such blessings to society that we should put all snits on the same footing, and bribe wealthy solicitors to bring speculative actions by the hope of an enormous reward in case of success? An able and amusing writer in the Times, after dilating on the advantage of making it an attorney's interest to be prompt in business and terse as a draughtsman, and on the consequent advantages of the bargain system, winds up by saying, " Of course large summary powers must be given to the courts when unreasonable bargains are made or undue influence is exercised." But who does not see that is precisely the exist- ing system ? How can the court tell whether a bargain is unreasonable except by taxing it—that is, making the attorney send a bill in, and appointing a competent officer to go through the items ? If it is meant that the judge is not to go by any fixed rules, but to say haphazard whether the bargain is fair or not, you not only do away with the fundamental principle of all law, but raise the question whether the j edge's de- cision will from an equitable point of view be worth a straw. To say that an attorney shall be at liberty to make a binding bargain which is reasonable is a contradiction in terms. He may do that now. The client only breaks his bargain when he has come to think it unfair, and if on taxation of the bill it turns out to be fair, if the sum stipulated for is no more- than the Master allows, even now the bargain is carried out and the client pays the costs of taxation. But it is said that contracts ought to be free, and that the State has no more right to fix the price of professional skill than the price of property. We reply that this principle has no legitimate application where the professional class enjoys a legal mono- poly. Doctors do not, and they may stipulate for any fee they please. Clergymen do, and they must baptize, and marry, and bury at fixed rates. It is really absurd to say that there is anything unjust in fixing the maximum charges of railway companies and dock companies. So long as attorneys enjoy a monopoly of legal agency, they cannot complain that the State takes on itself to control their charges. The evils of the present system of estimating costs we admit. In conveyancing we see an obvious and proved remedy ; in litigation we confess that we do not. As for the bargaining system, we repudiate it with terror. That all the lawyers and the Law Institution are writing letters of thanks to the Chancellor does not allay our fears. An attorney who may legally take advantage of a moment's weakness to bargain with his client's vanity or nervousness, will be as safe a thing to deal with as a loco- motive that has got off the rails. Till ignorance is on a par with knowledge, and a shilling pocket-knife will cut like a Mechi's razor, we will maintain that the only liberty of bar- gaming which an attorney ought to have is the liberty of the cabman,—the right to make a binding contract at a lower rate than he is legally entitled to.
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