SPECIAL ADDRESS.

with the former attorney and that his proper fees have been paid, or satisfactorily secured.

The utmost candor should be used toward the client. Occasionally a good client may be lost by this means. In the long run it pays. Besides, the right of the client should be observed regardless of consequences. All business transactions, except legal business, with the client should be avoided, and never should an attorney permit himself to buy from his client the subject matter of a litigation or the proceeds of it. He owes to his client, to the court and to himself, his very best effort in every case he assumes, regardless of the fee paid or expected, or the amount involved.

The compensation of the legal profession is not great. It may be safe to assert that no great fortune has been accumulated by the legitimate practice of the law, even by the most successful practitioner. In England a counsel or barrister cannot maintain an action for his fees, and in early times the attorney was paid as a gift whatever his client might feel disposed to bless him with. We are told in the History of the Decline and Fall of Empires,

"The noble art which had once been preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians was fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians who, with cunning rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of them procured admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of gain for themselves or their brethren. ak * * The splendid and popular class was composed of the advocates who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and of Justice, they are described for the most part as ignorant and rapacious guides who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of delay, and of disappointment."

Sharswood suggests, "Is not this probably the history of the decline of the profession in all countries from an honorable office to a money making trade?" Is there not a word of warning contained in this suggestion which it would be

EDWIN M. ASHCRAFT.

wise to consider? It is clear that "A horde of pettifogging, barratrous, custom-seeking, money-making lawyers is one of the greatest curses with which any state or community can be visited."

Contingent fees are now recognized as valid, but does not the contract, as suggested by an eminent writer, reduce the lawyer from his high position as an officer of the court and a minister of Justice to that of a party litigating his own claim? "It places his client and himself in a new and dangerous relation. They are no longer attorney and client, but partners." The attorney should be reasonably compensated and, with conditions as they now exist, it is imperative that he shall see to it that he is justly remunerated, and it seems proper he should be permitted to recover fair compensation by action, if required to resort to that alternative.

When he assumes the responsible duties of the profession, he should be content if, by constant labor and with the strictest integrity to the court and his client, he can enjoy the confidence and esteem of courts, clients, and the community, and from the efforts of his profession obtain sufficient means to maintain himself and his family in respectability and comfort, and so conduct his causes and himself, that when the end comes, his memory can be perpetuated by his record of good deeds done, and by the honorable position he occupied in a useful and learned profession.

SPECIAL ADDRESS.

SPECIAL ADDRESS.

THE STATE'S ATTORNEY'S OFFICE IN COOK COUNTY.

ALBERT C. BARNES, of Chicago.

It will be my purpose to show something of the magnitude of the work which devolves upon the State's Attorney of Cook County, and to make some suggestions for a speedier disposition of it.

The Criminal Court of Cook County is practically always in session. Four judges are regularly assigned to it, but its business frequently demands the services of six. In the volume of business and number of convictions it may safely lay claim to being the greatest criminal tribunal in the world. In the year 1898 (for which statistics chance to be before me) the total number of convictions for felonies and misdemeanors in the court of criminal' jurisdiction in London, having a population of four millions, was two thousand six hundred fiftynine, while those for the same year in the criminal court of Cook County, having about one-half that population, were over twenty-eight hundred. During that year three thousand two hundred forty-four persons were arraigned before the bar of the London Court, while during the court year from September, 1898, to September, 1899, three thousand five hundred and one true bills were found by the grand juries of Cook County.

For the past six and a half years (during the administration of the present state's attorney) the grand juries for Cook County have passed upon an average of over four thou

ALBERT C. BARNES.

sand cases yearly, resulting in an average return of about three thousand indictments annually. The grand jury is regularly convened each term of the year except the August term, and sits for two and sometimes three weeks. Notwithstanding that its sessions cover about one-half the year, public exigencies sometimes require the convening of special grand juries.

Occasionally more than six hundred cases have come before a single grand jury to be disposed of in a session of two weeks, of five and a half working days each, thus calling for the disposition of an average of sixty cases a day. Allowing the usual time of five hours taken for a day's session, the average time that could thus be devoted to the consideration of each case would be five minutes. When it is considered that there are usually not less than three witnesses to each case called before that body, thus requiring it to listen to one to two thousand witnesses during its session, something of the volume and celerity of its work may be imagined. Under such circumstances a criminal lawyer can well emphasize the necessity of entertaining the presumption of innocence, and expatiate upon the proposition that an indictment is no evidence of guilt. As sometimes over four hundred indictments are returned by a single grand jury, the task which devolves upon a single assistant state's attorney who must prepare them during its session, might well appall the average lawyer. For the first six months of the current year, eighteen hundred ninety-six indictments have been returned, an average of three hundred sixteen monthly.

To dispose of such a volume of business requires, as be fore stated, the continuous session of four branches of the Criminal Court for about eleven months of the year, one or two courts during the vacation season of August, and, at intervals, the session of from five to seven courts. The occasion for additional courts often arises because of the necessity of trial within the statutory limitations in order to prevent discharges for want of prosecution.

SPECIAL ADDRESS.

For the disposition of the work the State's Attorney has at his service fifteen assistants, a force of stenographers, two detectives regularly assigned from the police force and other detectives as they may be required. The time of one assistant is occupied in caring for the docket and the assignment of cases; that of another in passing upon the sufficiency of bonds and instituting suits for judgment on forfeitures; that of another in presenting cases before the grand jury and listening to complaints, etc.; that of another in defending against writs of habeas corpus and instituting suits for penalties, etc.; that of another in attending to cases of importance coming up in the lower courts on preliminary examination and attending before coroner's inquests; and the time of the others mainly in trial work and the preparation of their cases, both as they come before the trial and the appellate courts, each trial assistant following his case to the court of last resort.

Considering that there are about three thousand cases a year disposed of and an examination into many charges which do not ripen into indictments, it becomes apparent that with this limited force many cases must be disposed of with no preparation and only upon such information as can be acquired from a brief interview with witnesses immediately preceding the trial. The majority of common law offenses can thus be effectually disposed of. But trials for murder, complicated cases of embezzlement, obtaining money by false pretenses, conspiracy, violations of the election laws and other statutory offenses, usually require some preparation and a longer time for trial.

With the exception of a few cases, mostly of conspiracy, murder cases consume the most time for trial. Not infrequently four branches of the criminal court are engaged at the same time in the trial of murder cases. It is mostly on account of the time thus consumed that it becomes necessary to call in additional judges to dispose of the untried cases which