by the size and location of the subscribers' city as by the importance of the list itself. An attorney may easily spend a large sum of money in this sort of advertising without substantial return if he plunges recklessly into the vortex of schemes that await him on the threshold of his career as a commercial lawyer.

An attorney in a small or remote community can usually get his name into a number of important lists at small expense and such lawyers might profitably pay closer attention to the development of this side of their practice. Many have learned by experience, however, that a commercial practice cannot be increased as an incident to general business without time, patience, and close attention. It has even happened that good general practitioners have got into trouble through negligent handling of forwarded claims.

Most of the standard lists bond or guarantee their attorneys, and have well-organized grievance departments whose activities are called into play quite as frequently from carelessness as through misfeasance. On the other hand, of course, it is the gravity of the charge, rather than the amount involved, that requires the most strenuous interest of the grievance department.

An anecdote of this incident of commercial practice may he in point. A young attorney in a small western town failed to remit a collection of $200. The agent of the list in question made a long journey and called upon the young man, talked with him for several hours, and got his confidence. The lawyer frankly acknowledged that he had received the money some weeks previously. "Interest rates are high out here," he explained, glibly. "Jones & Brown, with whom I studied law, and one of our largest and best firms, always hold back their collections a month or so and get the interest-see!"

"You'll borrow that $200 and pay us to-morrow morning," said the list agent.

"Who'll lend it to me?"

"Jones & Brown."

66

They aren't in that business. You don't know them." "They will this time. Just tell them about what you've told me, and they'll go your note."

Jones & Brown indorsed the young man's note the following morning as predicted. It made little difference whether he'd lied about their methods of doing business or

told the truth. The young man who had studied law with them wasn't adapted to a commercial practice.

While it is

simple matter to get into a list of some sort. a place in one of the more important standard books is a commercial asset, especially in a city of any size. Vacancies are watched with eager eyes, and competition is keen. The business, judgment and acumen required throughout the career of the commercial lawyer is nowhere more essential than at the very threshold. How to get business isn't taught in the law schools, nor in any other curriculum than the school of life. Of course, a list which is widely circulated among clients, trade agencies, and wholesalers from whom the business is forwarded direct, may prove a very remunerative investment.

The collection fees are standardized:-10 per cent. on $300, 7% on a thousand, and so grading down to 5 and 2 per cent. on larger sums. Of this one-third goes to the forwarder and two-thirds to the receiving attorney.

The commercial attorney who has solved the various problems that are incident to this branch of the profession, and has established a large correspondence business, is possessed of a practice which differs from that of all others in its permanency. He can lose it, to be sure, by persistent neglect, but given any ordinary degree of ability and industry, and he has a good will which is transferable to his son, his partner, or which may even be sold for a substantial sum to a new comer. English physicians buy and sell a practice, but in this country almost the only professional good will which has this saleable quality is that of the commercial lawyer.

And yet, in the last analysis, it is always "the man behind the gun" in commercial law, as in every other walk in life. The necessity of knowing the man to whom you are intrusting important interests a thousand miles away has given birth to the commercial law league, whose recent convention has served to attract the attention of the bar generally to this line of work.

In the course of his discussion of the ethics of the commercial lawyer, Mr. Oppenheimer said:—

"Then if the so-called commercial lawyer is a necessary product of the times, there is no reason for supposing that his mode of practice is necessarily less ethical than that of any other member of the profession. Indeed, if we are correct in saying that business itself is being rapidly made more ethical

-if the world, despite its progressive commercialization, is really growing better, and if civilization is spreading, then those lawyers whose services are largely devoted to the adjustment and maintenance of the proper commercial relationships must inevitably get in line with the Zeitgeist-with what Maeterlinck has expressly called 'The Spirit of the Hive. The mere fact that the commercial practitioner may ofttimes represent clients at a distance, or be called upon to interpret the bankruptcy law, or assist unfortunate debtors in effecting an extension of credit, does not mean that he must be less ethical, less honourable, or less trustworthy than his brother who receives large annual retainers for enabling corporations to dodge the tax inquisitor."

These are but "tit-bits" -a detailed report of the convention would be impracticable, and aside from the purpose.

The committee on lists and agencies made an important report. Of 218 such lists and agencies it has sifted out some sixty odd, which deserve serious consideration from commercial lawyers.

As Mr. Oppenheimer pointed out, commercial law differs. from other practice in the fact that advertising is ethical, berause it is essential. The man who wishes to get business from localities where he cannot be known personally must adopt the methods of the merchant. Once granting that he may-must advertise, the only question is where he shall stop, and that must be regulated solely by expediency. This innovation is a necessary concomitant of the growth of business to country-wide and even world-wide proportions.

It is useless to inquire: "Is the law still a profession?" or bewail the "degeneracy of the times." The latter have changed and law business must change with them. To what extent he shall conform to such changes must always depend upon the judgment, tastes, and abilities of the individual attorney. It is for him to decide whether it is worth while to endeavour acquiring out of town business.

Of course, it is a good thing to get business. Of course, "business brings business;" and small business must be carefully attended to if one wants big business. All this is just as true of commercial practice as of any other.

In a general way it may be said that "commercial lawvers" in the larger cities are inclined to specialize, though they are often retained in important general litigations

VOL. XXXI. C.L.T.-53

through their correspondents. Their offices must necessarily be organized to take care of much small business, and their time is often monopolized by petty details, perhaps narrowing their view and disqualifying them for other kinds of work.

The average young lawyer, fresh from his academic studies, seldom knows much about the most ordinary incidents of trade and commerce. He has doubtless borrowed money, and therefore has some personal experience with "promissory notes." He may even have been notified of an overdraft by his banker, but that is the only kind of a draft he has dealt with.

Nor will his activities, in the ordinary run of general practice, serve much to enlighten him on questions that arise in interstate commerce. He has doubtless taken a course in "carriers," and has puzzled his brain over the intricacies of "stoppage in transitu," but it may be years before any instance arises where this learning will be called into play.

Of course, when the time does come, he will have his "L. R. A." at his elbow, and can refresh his recollection from a complete note on the subject. But will his client consult him or go to the "commercial lawyer?"

All this is but a part of the ever recurring question: "How far is a general practice possible under modern conditions? The great majority of attorneys are still general practitioners, turning from wills to patents, from the client whose son is in trouble with the police to one who has a line fence dispute with his neighbour; from the one who has inflicted injuries through the careless handling of his automobile to the client who wants to form a corporation, and from all these to the man with a claim for $10 to col'ect.

But the general practitioner may discover that a trust company has been consulted about the will and a patent attorney about the patent, that a criminal lawyer is looking after his client's son, and a real estate attorney settling the line fence dispute, that the insurance company's attorney is defending the automobilist, a bank attorney forming the corporation, and that the man with the $10 claim to collect has put it into the hands of the commercial lawyer.

And yet the fact remains that the general practitioner still manages to exist and to do business at the old standfor, when all is said and done, and due allowance made for important and increasing exceptions, the great majority of

clients still come to a man from his own vicinity because he is what he is, a tower of strength to the men about him unlearned in the law, who know him, and like him, and trust him in their most important concerns and most intimate and confidential affairs.

CURRENT COMMENT.

IMAGINARY IMPROVEMENT OF MEMORY.-In Hamilton v. Hamilton, 15 N. Y. App. Div. 47, 44 N. Y. Supp. 97, Mr. Justice (now Chief Judge) Cullen said: "One can cultivate by training the faculty of memory to a very great extent, and doubtless the plaintiff had done so," etc. The late Mr. Justice Van Brunt evidently entertained the same opinion, for in Matter of Cross, 85 Hun. (N. Y.) 343, he said (italics ours): "We think that we may take judicial notice of the fact that persons who are engaged in business, who cannot read and write, have their faculty of memory more acutely educated," etc. But here is a quotation from James's "Principles of Psychology," vol. 1, pp. 663-664, under the caption, "One's Native Retentiveness is Unchangeable " (typography the author's):

"It will now appear clear that all improvement of the memory lies in the line of elaborating the associates of each. of the several things to be remembered. No amount of culture would seem capable of modifying a man's general retentiveness. This is a physiological quality, given once for all with his organization, and which he can never hope to change. It differs no doubt in disease and health; and it is a fact of observation that it is better in fresh and vigorous hours than when we are fagged or ill. We may say, then, that a man's native tenacity will fluctuate somewhat with his hygiene, and that whatever is good for his tone of health will also be good for his memory. We may even say that whatever amount of intel'ectual exercise is bracing to the general tone and nutrition of the brain will also be profitable to the general retentiveness. But more than this we cannot say and this, it is obvious, is far less than most people believe."

The distinguished psychologist then proceeds to explain with characteristic force and lucidity the error of many people