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ing what had come over "old Mallot." George had nothing to do with preparing or presenting the evidence in the case. Most of his witnesses he never saw before the trial. They all popped smoothly on and off the stand, as though worked by secret, but effective, strings. He conducted easy phases of examination, and, at the conclusion, addressed the jury for half an hour with the simple speech of sincerity. The whole thing dazed the county prosecutor; for him the whole of the Philipstown bar had suddenly gone wrong.

Mr. G. Larcener was duly and smoothly acquitted. George shook each juror fervidly by the hand and assured each that he had that day been a "true deputy of justice"-"whatever that is," thought the wondering simple ones.

George met Wurster and the client an hour or so later in Wurster's office. They were both warm with wine. Mr. G. Larcener wept copiously on George's

shoulder, holding both of his hands, and spluttering liquor over his collar.

"Say Mr. Mr.-What's name," he gurgled, "Mr. Mallosh-that was finehic-speech. Made me sorry-y' un'erstand, that I took the-the money. I-I wanted to be, y' un'erstand, the kind uv feller you was talkin' about, see?"

"Then you were really guilty?" gasped George, sinkingly.

"Hush, hush, m' friend," soothed the drunken man, "some one'll hear you. The pleece-hic-got long ears-all same jackasses."

George never put fingers on his share of the plunder. "Oh, well!" thought Mr. Wurster, "it's up to him. He's too nice for this business, though."

Epilogue.

George Mallot has found himself at last. He is a truly popular and successful law professor in his old college.

Teaching Law Without Experience at the Bar*

By J. NEWTON FIERO
Dean, Albany Law School

THE

HERE has lately grown up an academic sentiment as to professional schools, which is insistent that lecturers and teachers who are active in their professions are not so well adapted to their work as law school teachers as are men who are fresh from their studies and who are assumed to make up for their lack of experience by their breadth of learning. This is especially true of the position taken by many educators as to medical schools. On that question I am not qualified to give an opinion, but this view

is also being pressed upon the prospective student and the bar by law schools in the main connected with large universities, whose staff of teachers almost necessarily consists in the main of men trained as such, with but little or no experience in actual practice, and who treat the law from an academic rather than a practical standpoint.

It is even insisted in many instances that the practice and procedure in the courts should not be taught in a law school, but should be acquired after

*From an address by Mr. Fiero before the Alumni Association of the Albany Law School.

graduation by the newly fledged lawyer solely at the expense of his prospective clients. On the other hand, I have always maintained that practice and procedure in the courts are the working tools of the profession, and that to instruct a man in the abstract rules of the law, without giving him instruction as to the manner of their application and enforcement, is very much like explanation to a prospective engineer of the functions and possibilities of a steam engine, without instruction as to the method of its operation. It would scarcely be deemed wise to place in charge of a passenger train a locomotive engineer whose knowledge of his engine was derived solely from books explaining its construction, and who had no instruction as to which lever should be used in going ahead, and which one for stopping or backing his train.

It would seem that the advocates of purely theoretical teaching have overlooked the fact that there were able lawyers in the days before law schools, when the only place for study was in the office of the practicing lawyer, and when the advice and assistance of a lawyer of experience was regarded as an important and necessary element in preparation for the bar.

Neither Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Thurlow, Chief Justice Mansfield, or Lord Chancellor Eldon had the benefit of a law school training. John Marshall's attendance at a law school covered but a few months at most, and the giants of the American bar, William Pinkney, William Wirt, Rufus Choate, and Daniel Webster, received their legal education in a law office. That the law school of to-day cannot wholly take the place of the law office is evident from the present requirement by the New York Court of Appeals that, except in case of men who have spent four years at college in ob

taining a high degree of mental discipline, the student must serve a clerkship of one year continuously in a law office before admission to practice.

The fact is that the law school is an aid to the office, and not a complete and satisfactory substitute for the training which the student receives who is in actual contact with the work to which he expects to devote his life, and the happy combination of the advantages of the law school and the office is instruction at the school in both the law and the practice by men who have had experience at the bar. This is true not alone as to practice, but it is only the lawyer of experience who can know the relative importance of legal principles; that is, as to their application to everyday affairs and the necessity from a practical standpoint of enforcing upon the student mind those rules and principles which are not only elementary, but which relate to matters as to which he will be most fre quently called upon to advise his clients and impress his views upon the courts on their behalf.

I venture to say that it is only the practitioner who can have a true perspective as to the topics embraced in the Common-Law and Equity Jurisprudence, so as to give to each the relative importance to which it is entitled in its presentation to the student body. Nothing so impresses the student as a live illustration from actual practice, bringing vividly to his mind the rule of law and its application, fixing the abstract proposition by its relation to the actual fact; and this is impossible unless a lecturer can draw upon his observation and experience.

This proposition is established by a glance at the relation which the practicing lawyer and the judge held to the law school in its inception, and which they continue to sustain toward it to-day.

Littleton, Coke, and Bacon were readers at the Inns of Court, which in their day was the nearest approach to the modern law school, and the most eminent barristers then conducted discussions by students upon legal topics. A judge of the Court of Chancery of Virginia was appointed to the first law professorship in this country in 1779 at the instance of Thomas Jefferson. The founder of the celebrated Litchfield Law School in 1784 was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. Chancellor Kent was appointed the first occupant of the chair of law in Columbia University in 1794. In 1770, James Wilson, then a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was appointed the first professor of law in the University of Pennsylvania. Judge Story was for many years the

bright particular star of Harvard Law School, while associate justice of the federal Supreme Court; while the latest and a notable instance of the availability of the man of experience as a teacher of law is the selection of the lawyer and jurist, William Howard Taft as a member of the law faculty at Yale.

I do not question but that men of exceptional grasp and ability may succeed and have succeeded as teachers of law without experience at the bar. My contention is only that lack of such experience is a handicap, and that the theory that lecturers at a law school are the better for lack of experience and of everyday contact with men and affairs in the courts is fallacious, and that the contrary view is sustained by both reason and observation.

Legal Bibliography--An Essential in the Law School Curriculum

By R. A. DALY

Of the Chicago, Illinois, Bar

ANY a young man who has finished

MANY

his preliminary education, passed the prescribed examination, and is admitted to the bar, and expects to earn his living by the practice of his chosen profession, seeks a position in some law office where he can get in touch with the practical application of what he has already learned, and better fit himself to push forth alone in the stream of untried. experiences before him.

The first thing that confronts him is a statement of facts, upon which he is asked to gather authorities and present the material for a brief.

It follows that the young man who, with his knowledge of the law, can analyze this proposition, and with his knowledge of the books produce quick results, is the one most valuable to the busy lawyer.

The object of all education is, or should be, to fit the individual to confront and successfully solve the problems as presented in his chosen field of activity.

It seems to me, therefore, that the very first question for the professional instructor to solve is: "How can I best interest the student, and what, in my par

ticular line, shall the instruction be that will best enable him to pick up the work where I must necessarily leave him, and pursue the same with profit to himself?" The mechanic must first get acquainted with the tools, and their use, handled in his particular vocation. What a tool chest is to the mechanic the working law library is to the lawyer. A multiplicity of books and the constant application of the principles of law to the ever-varying conditions of business and everyday life, as set forth in the multiplicity of books, calls for some means of ready access to the matter contained therein.

In answer to this demand, law book publishers devised what have seemed to them helpful methods of use by means of schemes of classification, mechanical and typographic devices, and their combinations, a knowledge of which opens these avenues of reference and transforms a task into pleasure. A lack of such information throws the searcher into a wilderness of chaos and confusion. The demand for such knowledge has led many of the law schools of the country to insert a course on Legal Bibliography as one of the essentials of their curriculum. The day cannot be far distant when every law school worthy of the name will see that such instruction is one of the assignments of a regular resident instructor.

Nothing can help the student more in getting a start. The best possible way to help a man is to help him to help

himself. It may be true that, after many disappointments and sad experiences, the young lawyer may master the problem alone. Some of the best lawyers known in history never saw the inside of a college or law school in the preparation for their life work—notably John Marshall. No one would think of making this fact an argument why all should enter the bar in a like manner. Many a lawyer is bemoaning the fact that his school failed to give instruction along this particular line. This knowledge of the proper use of law books may be the key to the door of success to the young man, and the lack of it the cause of failure.

It has been the privilege of the writer to lecture in over sixty different law schools in the country upon "How to Find the Law." Nothing has been to him of greater inspiration than the voluntary statements received from those who have attended such course of the practical help it proved to be to them in their early experiences in the office.

Give the young men a practical sendoff in their chosen profession. See that they are possessed with that knowledge that will enable them to choose intelligently, wisely, and economically those books necessary for a proper start in their profession. This cannot be done in glittering generalities, but concrete examples must be worked out in laboratory sessions by comparative use of the different systems and books presented.

Distribution of Lawyers (male) in the United States by State

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