Adventures of an attorney in search of practice

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IN SETS.

THE LEGAL ADVENTURE LLBRARY,

Chapter I

There is something vastly agreeable in th« first day of a professional life ; clerkship, servitude, and drudgery are all at an end ; one no longer asks the hour, with sore consciousness of being too late for office, or dire misgivings of having being inquired for; and racking one’s wits in vain for some new excuse, not yet exhausted, of “ gone to the Temple,” “ examining an abstract,” or “ serving a notice ! ” I was in such a desperate hurry to begin, that though I had not a client nor the dream of one, and was filled wuth lofty ambition to do the thing well, and start with all the magnificence of a house, I had not patience to wait till I could find one, but engaged a first floor over a shop, bought a desk and half-a-dozen chairs second-hand, incarcerated the first strav lad I could catch, in a dark cell eight feet by six, tied up old precedents with new tape, and then painted my name gorgeously on the door posts with all the dignity of “ Mr. Sharpe, Solicitor,” at full length.

Such was my self-complacency at the independence of my novel position, that I believe I rung my hand-bell for my clerk half a score of times in the course of an hour, merely for the pleasure of having it answered; though there was charity in the act, for without this stimulus to attention, he would inevitably have gone to sleep for lack of better employment. “ Well,” I thought to myself, “ here I am at last, and there’s an end to Blackstone and Tidd, and Barton’s Precedents, and all that for the present; and as to leases, and settlements, and wills, they are bad enough to be sure, in any view of the case, but at all events I shall draw them to pay myself, and that is something.” And thus comforting myself for the plague of prospective labor, I eyed the grave red-lettered calf-skin, resumed the newspaper, read every

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advertisement, and finally gaped out of the window in vain speculation of finding a client in some passer by.

How long this interesting state of indolent expectation might have continued, had I waited for clients to come to me, I cannot say, but after a week or two I began to find it as ennuyant as it was profitless, and resolved, as nobody seemed willing to find me out, to try my luck in finding out them. It was very clear that my extraordinary merits were still unknown, and an attorney, though he ought certainly to “ blush unseen,” if he blushes at all, cannot by any means afford to waste his sweetness on the desert air. Hence I changed my plan ; left word with my clerk that if any body called I was “ gone to the Temple,” and sallied forth on a Paul Pry expedition among all my friends and acquaintances ; but I verily believe that the demon of ill-luck, if there is such a deity in heathen mythology, presided over my first essays. Hot a. soul had called on me for three weeks, except two or three idle lads to see “ how I got on,” when, while engaged on one of my marauding expeditions, a certain noble lord of very large property, hitherto unprovided with a solicitor, and to whom I had been favorably mentioned by a common relative, drove up to my door, and called to instruct me to file an information against the trustees of an important charity. “ Gone to the Temple ” was as unintelligible to his noble ears as if my clerk had reported me “gone to the devil;” perhaps, in his opinion the expressions were synonymous, as in truth, I have often considered them myself: however this may be, I never saw any more of his lordship, or heard another syllable of his instructions, (except that another solicitor had filed the information,) though on three successive mornings I left my card at his mansion in Grosvenor Square; at no cost of time, for I had nothing else to do, but at an immense expense of coachhire, omnibuses not then being in fashion. It is all for the best : I have since seen and heard much of his lordship ; he is a worthy man, but his notions, however becoming his high rank, would never have agreed with my temper at that early time of day; and had we quarrelled, I should have lost clients in his connexion that I have still retained, and value far more highly.

This was a bad beginning, but I made the best of it, as has been my rule through life ; a

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wealthy client of noble rank is a prize to any man, but to a beginner at the age of four-andtwenty, the loss of him is a serious aflair ; so I complained to my friends of my bad fortune, wondered how anybody, noble or plebeian, could be so unreasonable as to expect to find a man of business always at home without making an appointment, and a few days after was solaced by a call from a gentleman that 1 had long known, who wished for my advice on a case where he clearly had not a leg to stand on ; and so I told him.

“ But must I lose the money, Sharpe ? ”

“ I am afraid so.”

“ Then you think there is nothing in it ? ”

“ I won’t go so far as that, but I think you are wrong.”

“ Umph ! a pretty joke to let this villain rob me in this way ! I thought you would get me out of it ; but you say you are not certain. I should like to ask Mr. Scarlett.”

Lord Abinger at that time ruled the day. I suggested the opinion of a junior counsel, as more easily attainable, and the opinion was taken. It confirmed mine, but my client was still dissatisfied ; he went to another attorney,

ADVENTURES OP AN ATTORNEY who brought the action, and succeeding by Scarlett’s aid, against law and reason, swamped my credit; for though the plaintiff has been my friend, and a kind one too, for more than twenty years, he has never again been my client from that day to this. I met him a few days after the trial, and our conversation was rather amusing.

“ "Well, Wright, you have gained the day ! ”

“ Yes, to he sure : hut little thanks to you.”

“ I admit it ; for I still think you were all wrong.”

“ Ay ; but wiser folks thought me all right.”

“ Scarlett never thought so, whatever the jury might.”

“But Scarlett did think so, and said so.”

“ Oh yes ! he told the jury so of course, and they were fools enough to believe him ; hut did he tell you so, at your consultation ? ”

“He said nothing at the consultation! he never once asked me to sit down; hut he cocked his eye at the attorney, nodded to the other counsel, poked the fire, and I saw at once it was all right. I paid two guineas or more for that cock of the eye ; hut it don’t matter for that, so long as that rascal can’t roh me and

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laugh at me to boot ; and he would have done both, had I followed your advice.”

“Well, don’t cry till you are out of the wood ; he’ll move for a new trial, and will get it, take my word for it ; and then Scarlett him« self will tell you who is right.”

My friend made a wry face at this prediction, and had his opponent then chanced to meet with him, and taken him between wind and water, he would gladly have drawn stakes ; but as my ill-luck would have it, I was again out, for a new trial was not moved for, my friend recovered damages and costs, and has ever since voted me a fool, and himself the very cleverest biped in creation : yet the case was as clear as the daylight. I earned, by this matter, £2. 145. 6d., and lost my client and my legal repute into the bargain

Weeks and even months rolled on, and my neat new floorcloth was still scarcely soiled by a trace of rich city mud, my desk was yet unstained by ink, my red tape retained its virgin bloom, my papers had not gathered an ounce of “ blacks” my clerk had acquired an habitual deze, and even my hand-bell seemed to have lost its power of disturbing his siesta! Matters looked desperate, and some extraordinary effort must be made to maintain appearances ? Thi ngs were in this state when I received a. call from a venerable old gentleman, for whom I had been actively employed in my clerkship. Though I had almost jumped up in ecstacy at the unwonted sound of voices in the outer room, I felt bitter disappointment when my visitor was ushered in ; for I inferred that his object could only be to discuss old business of which I thought I had taken leave for ever, or to bother me with the yet more provoking inquiry after papers or documents long since sent to the tomb of the Capulets. I was mistaken.

“ Mr. Sharpe, I have been at a stand-still ever since I lost you : nobody understands my case : nobody will read my papers : I have to begin again, and go over all the old ground, — what can I do ? ”

“ Tell me how I can help you, and I will with all my heart.”

“ You must take the business into your own hands.”

“ That would be unfair to my late masters.”

“ They wish it themselves.”

I inquired into the fact, and found it was so

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I cannot consistently, with the mask that I am obliged to assume, mention their names ; and if I could, my testimony to their liberal and generous behaviour could add hut little to the very distinguished station which they have long and deservedly occupied in the profession. This old gentleman was the claimant of property exceeding half a million sterling. I believe that it was nearly double that amount, hut I never accurately learnt the sum. lie was a man of first-rate abilities and wonderful resolution ; he had been engaged for a quarter of a century in prosecuting this claim, and had accumulated papers upon it sufficient to load a coal-wagon. Disappointment, however, had attended all his efforts: he had three times memorialized the special tribunal which parliament had appointed for the investigation of his and similar cases, and he had three times been turned back. In this dilemma, he was recommended to apply to the eminent house to which I have alluded; his papers were in a foreign language which I alone in the office understood; and hence he was handed over to my care. When I left the office, I had, by dint of immense exertion, reduced his voluminous 1* papers to a manageable form, and put the matter in sucb a simple train for explanation, that I never dreamt of my further aid being required. It is difficult, however, for the ablest man to take up another’s work ; and poor Mr. Boyle soon found himself at sea with my successor. Had I at this time made a bargain with him, he felt his case so beset with difficulties, and so likely to survive, if not to murder him, for he was then seventy-two, that he would gladly have allowed me live per cent, on all that I might recover ; indeed, he hinted as much ; but I neither then nor now think such a mode of doing business quite honest, or at least, respectable. When relieved from all scruples of delicacy, by the kindness of his former solicitors, I resumed the case with all the energy I could command. His age prevented his daily coming to me; and consequently, I spent my time, often extending far into night, at his house. I succeeded for him to the full extent of his demand; but not till my statement of it, and my proofs, had been submitted to the keen scrutiny and close consideration of that clear-headed statesman, the late Mr. Huskisson. I shall not soon forget the grateful elation with

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which Mr. Boyle announced to me his success. He had been laboring for years in vain. He had spent life’s best existence in painful research, in self-denying privation, in prison, in want, and in personal danger ; resolved never to abandon, hut with life itself, the prosecution of a case which afforded him the only prospect of satisfying creditors who owed their losses to his most unmerited misfortunes. He had at length triumphed. He frankly and gratefully acknowledged that he owed that triumph essentially to my intelligence and industry. He was placed by it in circumstances, not only of independence, but of wealth, even after paying to the uttermost farthing every sixpence that he owed ; and to his honor it should he added that effluxion of time had long extinguished every legal liability. His creditors nobly acknowledged his merit, for they not only returned him the interest on their debts, but presented him with an estate which cost them sixty thousand pounds. He called for my bill, and I looked on my fortune as made : it somewhat exceeded forty-one pounds, five shillings, and sixpence, and was paid to a fraction; but I lost my client ! I did afterwards conduct for him an appeal to the privy council, involving a comparatively trifling sum of five or six thousand pounds, and I lost it on a point of law. He was too noble-minded to have resented this, as the failure was not mine. I attribute his desertion of me to a very different cause, and one which, I fear, vindicated it to his own mind. Having paid his creditors in full, he wished to supersede his bankruptcy. The commission was of nearly thirty years’ date ; he was very old and infirm ; and I collected from him that complicated and serious accounts were still outstanding between him and the estate of his deceased partner. I deprecated the supersedeas of his bankruptcy, lest it should rip open differences which costly and perennial litigation alone could settle : he could not comprehend the difficulty, and, I fear, ascribed it to motives that he disdained, — a wish to protect him by technical defense, from obligations that he knew were just. If this was not the cause of his alienation from me, I know it not to this hour; but so dire was the offense that I unconsciously gave him, that he limited his gratitude strictly to my demand, and cut me from that day, or nearly so, to the day of his death,

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twelve years after. I have met with many unaccountable disappointments in my professional career, hut few of them have been more mysterious to me, than how I happened to offend this venerable client, by recovering for him half a million of money under desperate circumstances, at a cost of £41. 55. 6d.

This disappointment mortified me much at the time, and even still I feel it ; hut somehow or other I gradually crept on in connexion, though still destined to lose my clients as rapidly as I acquired them. I have always had the credit of being a good-natured fellow : it is the worst reputation that an attorney can enjoy; he may he as acid as Sir Yicary Gibbs (my younger readers will scarcely understand the allusion), as roguish as Ikey Solomons (this comes nearer the present day), as ignorant of law as my Lord B (nobody will misunder-

stand this), and yet, if he is not unluckily a good-natured fellow, he will make money and retain clients. A reverend clergyman, whom 1 had known intimately at Cambridge, had a pretty servant-girl. The pretty servant-girl had previously lived in a wealthy family of rank, where she had given great satisfaction; so great, that she looked for higher wages, and these being refused, she took herself off. A pretty girl is not likely to he long out of place, if she conducts herself decently, and very soon she found one to her heart’s content ; hut character was required, and her former mistress being piqued at her abrupt departure, declared her to he all that was excellent, hut nodded her head, and added that she was “ unsteady.’* A nod of the head, whether from a prime minister or a prima donna, is no trifle; the pretty, hut “ unsteady ” services of the girl were rejected ; the fair one took refuge with the reverend gentleman; and he appealed, with Quixotic benevolence, to my confounded good-nature to see the girl “ righted.” I brought an action for the libel, against my pleader’s advice this time, for I had had experience enough of being too clear-sighted; I laid the damages high; assigned as many mischievous inuendoes to the word “ unsteady,” as an Irishman reeling along in all his glory could have devised; and, against all reason, law, and common sense, recovered a hundred pounds, when as many pence would have been ample indemnity. A new trial was moved for, and of course obtained, on

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payment of costs by the defendant. The costs were paid; the record again brought down; the cause called on; the jury sworn; and then the defendant cried peccavi ! offered to submit to the damages assessed before, and pay all costs of the second trial. What man in his sober senses would reject such overtures ! Of course I acceded to them, packed up my briefs, and bolted. The costs were very heavy, for witnesses had been subpoenaed to rebut the pleas of justification. I write from recollection, but if my memory does not deceive me, the taxed costs between party and party were more than <£300. My extra costs would have swallowed up the damages, but my “ good-nature ” would only accept those out of pocket, about thirty pounds ; leaving the pretty “ unsteady ” lass seventy to comfort herself with, on the strength of which she married a very steady baker in less than a month. But again I lost my reverend client! “Was ever such a gross dereliction of duty ! to submit to a dastardly compromise; to spare the well-deserved exposure ! such scandalous oppression ! such unheard-of, such base, such unprecedented calumny on a poor, helpless, unfriended girl! and her own attorney, after taking up her cause * good* naturedly,’ benevolently, and boldly, to cow before the front of cruelty, and the pride of rank and purse ! ! ! ” &c. &c. &c. So my reverend friend bade me good-by ; transferred bis patronage and bis business elsewhere; and, though vve have once or twice, during the last twenty years, met on cool and distant terms, I have never seen him or any of bis connexion, within the walls of my office, from that hour to this. We were previously on terms of intimacy.

My “ good nature ” has been eternally in my way; another early incident of my professional life will show this in another light. In the last instance, it led me into the folly of espousing a bad case on its merits, on the solicitation of an ass who could not understand its demerits ; and though I won the case, I lost the blockhead’s business, which was far better worth gaining ; but the next folly into which my “good nature” plunged me entailed with it loss of time, trouble, money, and connexion too, simply because I laid people under obligations, who were too poor to discharge them, and too proud to acknowledge them ! and, perhaps I should say, too mean to offer that indirect, but satisfactory

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acquittance which is easily won by the favorable introduction of a young professional man to the circles of rank and wealth.

I had still next to nothing to do, when accident brought me to the acquaintance of a lady of high birth and considerable property, but whose affairs were deeply, though not irretrievably involved. The peculiar introduction which I had to her, though the object of it was expressly to offer my professional services, compelled me, as I thought, to offer them gratuitously. They were accepted with an avidity that ought to have made me distrustful of their value being appreciated : but I had undertaken no trifling duty; there were bailiffs to baffle, duns to tranquilize, annuitants to awe, friends to coax, and, in a word, the devil to pay. How I ever got through it, I cannot tell, but I did clear the road; and finally, by cutting down one claim, compromising another, and setting at defiance two or three score, till they willingly took a shilling in the pound, I succeeded in extricating my “ honorable ” client, and comfortably left her to make the best shift she could on some twelve hundred a-year. I was never asked for my costs, nor ever asked her for them, though they would have been no trifle; hut a year or two after I casually met her in the park, where certainly I had no business to be. She was walking with a female relative.

“ Good morning, Mrs. Leighton : it is a lovely day.”

The glass to the eye, and a distant courtesy.

“ I wonder that the park is so deserted in this weather.”

A second courtesy, partaking rather of the bow. If I have too much good-nature, I certainly seldom want assurance; and that is a kind of compensation-balance — a good set-off, as my brethren would say.

“ Laura, my dear, I fear the carriage will miss us ; ” and so saying, my “ honorable ” client was meditating an escapade closely bordering on the cut direct. I resolved this should not succeed.

“ Apropos of the carriage, Mrs. Leighton, had you any more trouble with that rascallj coach-maker, Stiffspring ? ”

“ Oh, my dear Mr. Sharpe, I declare I didn’t know you ! don’t mention the fellow’s name ; you quite distress me, — the horrid creature! but I can’t stop to talk now, for the wind is

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very eold, (it was a sultry day in July !) I shall Bee you soon,5’ and so saying, she directly turned hack, assuring “ Laura ” that the carriage must have gone the other way. I pursued my own ; and never have seen her since, though I hear she is again in the same quagmire in which I first found her: and there she may remain for me.

Chapter II

It was my destiny, for a long time, to fall in with most unmanageable clients. I have no doubt that every solicitor who has to make his own connexion, as it is called, meets with the same adventures, more or less; hut I cannot help thinking that I have had more than my fair share. There are two classes of clients that I have always found especially tickle and difficult to please; and yet in the first instance, they are always the most confiding and apparently the most docile. Docility is a great point in a client: some attorneys will laud ductility as a better virtue, and very near akin to it; I will not dispute this, when the client has the other properties of gold; hut by docility, I mean something between ductility, pliability, and capability: whereas clients of the

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classes I am about to mention have very seldom any of either of these good qualities after their first or second interview.

Whatever wears a petticoat, whether ladies or clergymen, is an absolute nuisance in an attorney’s office. I have given a specimen of both, but not exactly in the character to which I now allude.

One day when I was meditating gravely on the past, and speculating anxiously on the future, each foot on the hob, and leaning back in my office chair, which began now to exhibit a little of the professional dignity of fading morocco, a portly gentleman, with a rosy face that confessed to a daily bottle of port for at least forty summers, was announced as “the Venerable the Archdeacon Tithestraw.” I rose, and bowed, and offered him the professional tli rone on which I had been myself seated, not, I protest, from any obsequious deference, though I own to certain pleasurable anticipations of an exchequer suit, but simply because my mind misgave me as to the sufficiency of any other chair in the room, adequate to his safe reception, in point of strength and capacity.

“ You are a Cambridge man, Air. Sharpe?”

“I have that honor, Sir.”

“May I ask what college?”

So many Cantabrigian sins rushed to my conscience, though it had slumbered over them for years in peace, that I was awe-struck by the interrogatory, not less than by the pomposity of his tone, and the inflated dignity of his manner.

“Certainly, Sir; hut excuse me for first inquiring why you ask ? ”

“ Sir, I am unfortunately compelled, by conscientious principles, to embark in a controversy of the most painful nature with one of my parishioners; and as mine is a peculiar, indeed I may say a very uncommon case, I would fain avail myself of the assistance of a legal adviser whose sympathies, not less than his professional zeal, would he enlisted in my behalf. I heard in our combination-room, that you and I, Sir, were both children of the same Alma Mater, and hence I inquired your college to assure myself of your identity.”

This long-winded enunciation of himself and his business, did not by any means prepossess me in favor of my visitor: however, six and eight-pence is worth having, come from what pocket it may, so I declared my college, and satisfied his doubts : he then proceeded.

“It is most painful, Sir, to any man who feels the due importance of the pastoral relation, to be involved in a controversy with a parishioner about the temporalities of the church; hut we owe a duty to our successors, which is too frequently opposed to our natural inclination to yield, rather than assert by law, our most undoubted rights.”

The sentiment was awfully impressive, and might possibly he sincere. I bowed, and hemmed acquiescence.

“I need not remind you, Sir, that though in the present day, and for some centuries past, that revolution that occurred in our ecclesiastical polity in the days of the eighth Henry, completely secularized all property in tithes, and subjected them to the manifold incidents of a lay -fee, yet on the acknowledged principles of our common law, spiritual persons alone are entitled to receive them.”

The Archdeacon now became awfully learned ! I again bowed and hemmed, but with somewhat more of the hem critical, than the hem acquiescent: he advanced in his syllogism.

“I, Sir, am a spiritual person, as my card has doubtless assured you. I am the vicar of Dumbleton cum Quagland, in the county of Lincoln; and by virtue of the endowment, I claim, as of indisputable right, all the tithes of hay, wool, agistment, sheep, calves, poultry, and garden stuff, and all oblations, mortuaries, and dues thereto belonging, or in any way appurtenant to the same.”

It admitted of no question; on my part it would have been downright folly to doubt it: my assent to the position was this time most cordial.

“ Easter offerings, Sir, are, as you of course well know, dues of common right.”

He paused, as if for a professional confirmation of the dogma, but I knew nothing about it, though I was afraid to say so. My policy was to parry the thrust by a simple

“Well, Sir?’

“I may be wrong, Sir; I do not pretend to be an authority in such matters, but the slight research which my clerical duties have allowed me to make into them, has taught me to consider this as an axiom in law; for I find it so laid down by my Lord Coke, and also

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recognized in the learned book of Peere Williams, 4 for,’ says the chief baron Gilbert, 4 Easter offerings are a compensation for personal tithes, or as other authorities maintain, for the tithe of personal labor; inasmuch as by the statute 2 and 3 of Edward VI, chap, xiii, sec. 7, it is enacted, that every person shall yearly, at or before Easter, pay, for his personal tithe, the tenth part of his clear gain, his charges and expenses being allowed according to his degree.”

I began to gasp for breath, having long since been out of my depth, hut my venerable visitor had not got to the beginning of his case; and in spite ,of exchequer suits in view, I trembled at the prospect. Silence was obviously my cue, and I allowed him to go on without interruption.

44 It was determined in Hewn versus Chamberlain, 1 Equity Cases Abridged, page 366, that the clear profit of a corn-mill must be reckoned after deducting the charge of erecting the mill; and this has been decided over and over again, for which see Ambler, Vernon, Brown, Lee, and many other old and