date

27 July 1806 Scotch Reform /Evidence
27 July 1806

Scotch Reform /Evidence/

Let Lawyers adverse

Such thus being in the present state f things the relation between the two interests viz that of diametrical opposition the next point to be inquired into is the possibility of conciliation, which leads of course to an inquiry into /for/ the cause from /in/ which the opposition took its rise.

This cause, a most prominent one, has been already indicated: the shape in which in Scotland, or in England, not to speak of other countries the man of law receives a retribution for his service or pretended service /the wages of learned labour find their way into the hands of the man of law/.

Fees, payable on the occasion under the name of reward[?] /retribution/ for each service or pretended service, express the shape in which the wages of this kind of labour present themselves. If it were altogether out of the power of the labourer /workman/ either to encrease or diminish the number of these occasions, or the quantity of labour in reality or appearance on each, the mode of payment would be not only [...?] but eligible. Unfortunately it has been in the power of lawyers /the men of law[?]/ of former /extant/ times to give continual encrease to the number of these profitable /profit-yielding/ occasions, as well as to the quantity of service or shewn service rendered upon each /in each occasion bestowed/: it has remained still in the power of the men of law of modern times, if not to add /make any very considerable //proportionable// addition/ to the [...?] of those services of profit, at least to protect it against decrease. More unfortunately still to put /draw/ into the pocket of any individual lawyer a small particle of profit /portion of the matter[?] of fees/ taking each lawyer individually, he has been in the case of a surveyor or other agent employed in expenditure paid by a per centage: for every shilling put into his own pocket he has been obliged to draw a pound with its attendant delays and vexations out of the pocket of the employer.
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  • Title: [27 July 1806 Scotch Reform /Evidence]
    Description: 27 July 1806

    Scotch Reform /Evidence/

    Lett Lawyers adverse

    Such being the opposition of interests, and such the cause of it, now as to the means of conciliation.

    I have hitherto considered the man of law in a state of unity. On a closer inspection we may distinguish in him two interests; the official and the professional. At present they may say in the [...?] stile[?] of complimentary [...?], and with a sincerity not altogether so liable to reception[?], there is a [...?] between us. Official lawyer and professional lawyer, partners and friends to each other, are both [...?] to the suitor. Looking a little further on we may [...?] a latent difference. The difference is the /the merely/ official lawyer though[?] a present wrong[?] is not incurable and is not the /one[?]/ irreconcilable wrong[?]: that of the professional lawyer is.

    The official lawyer, whatever he receives now in a composed[?] shape, part salary and part fees, he may receive /be made/ wholly in the shape of salary without fees: the professional lawyer whatever he receives he can never receive in any other shape than that of fees. Compensation, the sum that /[...?...?]/ [...?] which the humanity of our own age and nation never fails to [...?] into the wounds[?] which can never fail to be made by the land[?] Reform compensation, finds the hand of the official lawyer compleatly susceptible /open to it/, that of the professional lawyer as compleatly unsusceptible /stand against it/.
  • Title: [27 July 1806 Evidence Scotch Reform]
    Description: 27 July 1806

    Evidence Scotch Reform

    Lett Lawyers Adverse

    The first point for noble Lords in their own minds, [...?] which of the two opposite interests - the interest of the suitor and the interest of the man of law - shall receive the preference. I say opposite far more decidedly and irreconciliably opposite /[...?] opposite/ as matters have stood hitherto, no two sets of interests can be. It is the interest of the suitor that whatsoever is administered under the name of justice be administered with as little delay, expence and vexation in other shapes as possible. It is the interest of the man of law that the quantity of delay expence and vexation may at all /on every/ occasion be as great as possible: that is as great as the people in their character of suitors are by habit, and prejudice, and ignorance /darkness/ and misconception /misrepresentation/ be lulled into the endurance of [...?] because of the money extracted out of the pocket of the man of law: and of the part which goes into other pocket the [...?] is so unseparably connected with the lawyer's share, that when /a[?]/ the one part receives encrease in diminution the encrease or diminution of the other follows of course. Of delay: because something either in the character of cause or effect the connection between the incidents that bred /have [...?] made/ delay and the incidents that have been made to breed lawyer's profit /fees/ is inseparable. Of vexation: because though no fees /lawyers profit/ spring directly out of the vexation of the suitor, abstractedly[?] considered, any more than any enjoyment passes on immediately and in a direct line into the bosom of the butcher from the dying agonies of the lamb, inasmuch that it is not in human nature that the lawyer should be particularly sollicitous or active in the inflicting /active or sollicitous about the infliction of/ vexation on the [...?] for /chance[?]/ vexation's sake, yet as it is impossible that fees /profit/ could ever be received by the lawyer but vexation, and that rising and falling in proportion to the profit must be suffered by the suitor, the best that can happen to the suitor, is that his vexation should, in the eyes of the lawyer, by whom his fate is disposed[?] of, as an object of indifference.
  • Title: [1821. Aug. 7. Rid Yourselves]
    Description: 1821. Aug. 7.

    Rid Yourselves

    Lett. 2. Interests concerned.

    2. So far as has depended upon them, this

    service has, in every instance, been real and beneficial.

    In the case of every other sort of public functionary what may have

    happened, in the instance of any number of individuals, is - that, in retribution of

    that which they have received, they have rendered - either no service at all, or

    service in any degree less valuable in respect of quantity

    or quality than they ought: or even that, instead of rendering useful service, the

    power attached to their situation has, in a greater or less proportion, been employed

    in the production of positive evil.

    3. The occasions, on which this service has

    been rendered by them, have always been such, on which the need of it had place to an extraordinary degree.

    4. For this service of theirs, whatever retribution has been allotted

    to them, has, in every instance been the very least for

    which the service could have been obtained. In the case of any other sort of public

    functionaries, the retribution is capable of being in an unlimited degree excessive:

    and in every government, in the instance of perhaps every department not to say in

    almost every office, has hitherto been more or less so.

    In opposition to the thus established claims of those never

    unfaithful public servants, an observation that has been made, is - that the inducement, by which they have been led to become such, has

    been no other than, in the instance of each, a regard for his own private interest.

    1. If, in the instance of every one of them, this were true, it would

    not distinguish his case from that of any other public

    functionary: nor, in a word, from any individual,

    by whom, in the ordinary way of dealing, labour, or commodities produced by labour,

    are bestowed upon another for an equivalent. The observation, therefore, if admitted

    as a justification for non-payment - whether of the whole, or of any the smallest

    part of what was agreed to in the Contract, found out of the question would be an

    equally good justification for an universal bankruptcy: for the cheating of every

    private Creditor by his Debtor.

    2. What is more,- it has in this case less truth in it than in any of

    those other cases. In the situation of the original lenders, there has commonly been

    an number more or less considerable, in whose instance regard for the universal

    interest, at any rate for what in their eyes has been the universal interest, has

    constituted a part, more or less considerable, of the inducement, by which their

    conduct as to this matter has been determined: and, unless the existence of social

    affection, having the universal interest for its object be deemed altogether

    incredible,- the more extraordinary the pressure, the greater is the proportion,

    which, in the aggregate mass of the inducement is likely to have been constituted by

    this part.