THE LEGAL PROFESSION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4513, 7 September 1875, Page 2

THE LEGAL PROFESSION.

TO TIIE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —Since the step taken by the Chief Justice towards establishing a proper educational standard of admission for barristers, and your leader on the subject, considerable speculation in this matter has prevailed within the profession. The action of the Chief Justice seems to be very generally interpreted as the first step in the direction of a division of the branches of the profession. It would be difficult to imagine a state of the law at once more inexpedient for the public, more unjust, and in some respects more positively cruel in its operation than that now prevailing. I wish to put before the public and Parliament an aspect of this affair which does not receive the attention it merits. As the law now stands, a positive penalty is practically put upon the ambition, or what you like to call it, which may lead any young gentleman to deviate from the ordinary track of service in an office, and to devote the time spent by others in such services to the laborious and expensive process of having himself so educated and trained in mind an:l feeling as, at some future day, to take an honorable place in the ranks of a profession which it is the custom to designate parexcellence "honorable." The law now, I must say, invidiously invites him to pursue this course, but if he gives way to the seduction, he will be almost certain to pay a bitter penalty for so doing. For, take the cases of two young men, one of whom enters an office, the other either goes to England or elsewhere and spends some three or four years of his life and his funds in liberal training. The former gentleman, besides very probably receiving salary during the whole time of service, is daily and hourly in personal contact, both in and out of the office, with the clients; and if he is a person of any tact, energy, and ability, he passes out of his articles with a cluntcla already made. The latter returns to the colony ; the public neither know nor care anything about him, whereas the solicitors established in each locality very soon spot him : they have a direct interest in seeing that he gets no chance of showing his face in that sphere of professional duty to fit himself for which he has, under the encouragement of the law, made such sacrifices of time, energy, and money. Unless besides the funds, necessarily considerable, which he has spent in education, he is also the lucky possessor of some thousand pounds or so more to buy into a solicitor's practice, or a powerful family clique at his back, his lot is inconceivably miserable. Bitter experience of some five years has burnt this view deeply into my soul, and I know positively that my case is not singular. I could, if it were desirable or necessary, name instances of both the classes I refer to. The public seem to imagine this is a matter which does not concern them ; but they are, as they will one day discover, egregiously in error. . Directly concerned they certainly are not, but indirectly it does indeed concern them deeply; and the impatience of this or any other indirect consideration is just an instance of that "pig philosophy" which never yet. failed to react upon upon those whose shortsightedness makes them victims to it. For whereas in a case where the branches of the profession are distinct the solicitors have an interest in encouraging new men, so that a junior Bar grows up from which subsequently issue forth the leaders of a future day ; in such a state of things as here rules not one of these men could, unless under the circumstances and with the favoring conditions above mentioned, show his face. The Law Practitioners Act, IS6I, sec. 59, gives the Judges power, under certain conditions, to divide the profession, and they may introduce this change in any one part of the colony without making it applicable to the whole. But there are great practical difficulties in the way of this step. It does not seem clear how any such "experiment could with advantage be made even hero without first rearranging the whole structure of our judicial system. You yourself have sufficiently dwelt upon the practical evils generated by the existing plan, and I do not wish here to notice that aspect of the matter further than to point out that until the Supreme Court is concentrated in one, or at most two, centres, it is not easy to see how any hopeful change can be attempted. The higher courts once established here, the experiment might be at once made, and it does not follow from this that things could not go on just as before in the other judicial centres. But two further changes would be necessitated ; first, enlarged powers would have to be assigned to the district courts, and second, it would be necessary and just alike to the profession and the public to distribute the business of the two branches as to induce the best men of the profession to make choice of the higher branch. Thus, both in their interest and that of the public, measures should, I think, be taken to sweep away the absurd etiquette, or rather tyranny, which, despite of law, forbids a client to consult the opinion of a barrister without the intervention of a solicitor. These suggestions are, of course, merely tentative, but sooner or later, and the sooner the better, a radical change must come. The present regime results in a monopoly of the worst sort, for while a few firms, from the accident of having been first on the spot, are making colossal fortunes, the class of now men are, with rigorous jealousy, kept out. The public do most certainly in the end suffer by this exclusion, but they can't see it —they need not be expected to see it. At the samo time, the penal operation of the law upon the class of young men alluded to is cruel in the last degree. It would be much better in all ways, if no other change be made, to %vavn these persons by direct enactment thai they are not to pursue such a course: that would be at least consistent and merciful. Any change in the direction of division will, of a certainty, encounter determined opposition from the persons who are reaping a golden harvest from the evil here pointed out. But if the Judges, supported by the intelligent portion of the public, be firm and vesoluto, I do not see anything at all to prevent the reform being inaugurated. In conclusion, let those who do not wish to see the powerful and influential profession of the law monopolised by a few firms, and a few family rings, seriously consider this matter.—l am, &c, A Barrister.