Adventures of an Attorney in Search of Practice, Volume 1

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Page 217 - HAVE found it far more difficult to regulate my ir.tercourse with counsel by any systematic rules, than to manage either my client or opposing solicitors. We certainly have less provocation to temper in this case, because we can never come into personal collision with the members of the bar, except in open court, where the authority of the judge is, or ought to be, exerted to preserve not only the peace, but the decorum of society. I have sometimes witnessed a great deal of overbearing insolence...
Page 251 - Attorney" agrees with us in both these points: "Of all witnesses in an honest cause, an intelligent child is the best; of all witnesses in any cause, a woman is the worst, unless she happens to be very pretty and engaging, for then she will answer the purpose, whatever it be, most successfully.
Page 68 - ... interests. The casualties and accidents of litigation are so frequent, and sometimes so expensive, that they occasion more expenditure than even the whole of the proceedings that go on in the accustomed course ; and if the cause of action is not of sufficient importance to warrant costs out of the ordinary routine, if necessary, it is wiser and more honest to advise the client to submit to his loss.
Page 382 - ... toes, and I ask him with calmness and temper, to be more careful another time ; but if he insults my daughter, I think it a moderate course to kick him down stairs though at the risk of breaking his neck. CHAPTER XXV. " Nor can protection be accomplished as regards private slander, unless the defence of the injured character is made so easy, safe, and effectual, that the legal proceeding shall not be either loaded with ruinous expense, nor shall imply a consciousness of guilt, nor shall aggravate,...
Page 7 - ... 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.
Page 193 - ... complicated relations of debtor and creditor — or doubtful customs in trade or commerce ; but these were comparatively rare, and by no means constituted the bulk of legal practice ; that was to be found in petty personal disputes or delinquencies — in small controversy between small people. Law too, like every thing else, was comparatively cheap, and even the bar, though always to a certain extent the resource of pauper-aristocracy, was scarcely regarded in any other light than a refuge for...
Page 7 - He said nothing at the consultation! he never once asked me to sit down; but 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; but it don't matter for that, so long as that rascal can't rob me and laugh at me to boot; and he would have done both, had I followed your advice.
Page 203 - ... bills: they call on tradesmen of the better order at Midsummer or Christmas, as punctually as the tax-gatherers, and inquire the extent of bad and doubtful debts in their ledger: they buy them up according to circumstances, and obtain a rich harvest, if they can purchase five or six hundred pounds due from a score of customers, at five shillings in the pound; twenty actions are thus secured, and as many writs issued on returning to office; in half they recover nothing but the costs; if in the...
Page 69 - In ordinary actions to recover debts, or damages for pecuniary injury, the expence resolves itself into mere matter of arithmetical calculation ; such actions, however, form by no means the staple commodity in the business of an eminent attorney. A curious instance of this accidental expenditure to a small extent, once occurred to myself. I was engaged in a cause at the assizes about fifty -miles from London. It stood first in the paper for the day following my arrival. I had...

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