A Philadelphia Lawyer in the London Courts

ORS-CONDUCT OF A TRIAL-"TAKING SILK"-BECOMING A K.

f property. Supposing him, however, to be one of the minority determined to rise in the profession, he is confronted with formidable obstacles, for he can not look to his friends to furnish him with briefs. He can never be consulted nor retained by the litigants themselves. The only clients he can ever have are solicitors, whose clients, in turn, are the public. He never goe

oys the same devil. This term is not applied in a jocular sense, but is the regular and serious appellation of a young barrister who, in wig and gown, thus serves without compensation and without fame-for hi

s; occasionally he even sees the party he is to represent, and, more rarely, an important witness or two. Th

ed more distinguished counsel, the solicitor retains a K. C. as leader. Then a "consultation" ens

ourt. He states his side's contention with particularity, reads documents and correspondence (none of which have to be proved unless their authenticity is disputed-points which the solicitors have long ago threshed out) and he even indicates the position of the other side, while, at the same time, arguing its fallacy. Having done this, he leaves it to the junior to call the witnesses-more often he departs from the court room to begin another case els

n paid, inasmuch as no case is deferred by reason of counsel's absence, the junio

either his junior nor his august leader appear, he may even close to the jury. The solicitor will be white with rage and chagrin, wondering how he shall explain to the litigant the absence of the counsel wh

rrent to be permitted. On the contrary, he often has his own chambers and may, at any time, be himself retained as a junior,

to shine as a junior, whereupon appears his own satellite in the person of a younger man as devil, while the junio

ivision between the law and equity sides of the system. Whether a barrister shall "apply" for silk is optional with himself and the distinction is granted by the Lord Chancellor, at his discretion, to a limited, but not numerically def

. He has also a comfortable chamber practice in giving opinions, drawing pleadings and the like, but all this must be abandoned-because the etiquette of the Bar does not permit a K. C. or leader to do a junior's work-and he must thereafter haz

demanding the Scot's reason for his advice. The latter reluctantly explained that the barrister had a good living practice which he would be foolish to give up. Being further pressed, he finally said: "In many years' observation of the Bar I have learned that success is only possible with one or more of three qu

ty affecting a leader's vogue. Solicitors get vague notions that the sun of a given K. C. is rising or setting-that the judges are looking at him mo

ambers and crossing the Strand, or arraying himself in the robing room of the Law Courts, he enters court at 10:30, and takes part in the trial or argument of various cases until 4 o'clock, often having two or three in progress at once, which require him to step from court to court, to open, cross-examine, or close, having relied upon the juniors and solicitors to keep each case going and tell him the situation wh

Strand from T

dgeship, or possibly an attorney-generalship, both of which, unlike their prototypes in America, mean

onsidering the estimates of well-informed judges, barristers and solicitors, it seems that the legal business of the Kingdom is handled by

, practicing in the appellate court of a State, constitute the Bar of that State, which is a complete entity. Great commercial

tors' offices would exclude individual solicitors employed by others, as will be explained hereafter. The aggregate of these two uncertain elements, however, would be about 27,000. The legal directories give the names of something like 95,000 lawyers in America of whom about 27,000 appear in fifteen large cities-New York,