TO THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION EDITION. SHARSWOOD'S Essay on Professional Ethics is reprinted, as a volume of the American Bar Association series, in conformity to the action of the Association taken upon recommendation of the Committee on Code of Professional Ethics (vide volume XXXI, A. B. A. Reports), at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting, held at Portland, Maine, in August, 1907. The Executive Committee of the Association was of opinion that to print and distribute the work at the present time would prove too heavy a drain upon the resources of the Association, whereupon Messrs. T. & J. W. Johnson Co., the original publishers for Judge Sharswood, and owners of the plates, offered to print our edition at cost, and our brother General Thomas H. Hubbard, of New York, manifested both his zeal and generosity by personally subscribing the entire amount necessary to print, bind and distribute the book, modestly requesting that his own name be withheld—a request with which we believe the Association would prefer we should not comply. George Sharswood1 was born in Philadelphia, July 7, 1810, was graduated Bachelor of Arts by the University of Pennsylvania in 1828, read law in Philadelphia in the office 'For fuller particulars vide article in American Law Register for October, 1907, by Samuel Dickson, LL.D., sub nomine "George Sharswood-Teacher and Friend"; also memorial address in 1883 by George W. Biddle, LL.D., upon "Judge Sharswood's Professional and Judicial Character," 102 Pa. State Reports, 601-630. AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION PREFACE. of Joseph R. Ingersoll, at one time American Minister to Great Britain, and was called to the Bar in 1831. From 1850 to 1868, he was Professor of Law in the University of Pennsylvania, and reorganized its law school, now Department of Law. For nearly forty years he served continuously upon the Bench, having in 1845 been appointed a Nisi Prius Judge in Philadelphia, and in 1867 been elected a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, becoming Chief Justice in 1879, and so continuing until the expiration of his term, January 1, 1883. He was the author and editor of many works on professional subjects.1 He died May 28, 1883. Upon his retirement as Chief Justice, at a testimonial dinner tendered him by the Bar of Philadelphia, the late William Henry Rawle, who was also the orator2 on behalf of the American Bar at the unveiling of the statue of John Marshall at the Capitol in Washington, addressing the Bar, said: "If the Bar in this state and this city is what it is, a great part of it is owing, I think, to your careful study of a modest little book, which deserves to be printed in letters of gold, written by our distinguished guest of to-night. I mean Sharswood's Professional Ethics." It is this work, first published in 1854, which is now presented as volume XXXII of the Reports of the American Bar Association. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, NOVEMBER, 1907. 1 Chairman of the Committee on 1 Vide Sharswood Bibliography, American Law Register, October, 1907, pp. 428-9. 2112 U. S. Reports, 748-761. JUDGE SHARSWOOD'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. (THE LAST PUBLISHED DURING HIS LIFETIME.) THE following Essay was originally published under the title of "A Compend of Lectures on the Aims and Duties of the Profession of the Law, delivered before the Law Class of the University of Pennsylvania." A portion of it had been read by the author as an Introductory Lecture at the opening of the Fifth Session of the Law Department of that Institution, October 2d 1854. The young gentlemen, alumni, and students of the school, who were present on that occasion, requested a copy for publication, in order that each of them might possess a memento of their connection with the Institution. The author preferred to publish the entire Compend than merely a part of it. He hesitated much in doing so, because the questions discussed are difficult, and opinions upon them variant, and he could scarcely hope that he had in every case succeeded in just discrimination. A review of the matter now, when a fourth edition has been called for, has suggested, however, no important change in the principles advanced, though a few additions have been made and some inaccuracies corrected. PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. It is proposed to consider this subject under two general heads : I. Those duties which the lawyer owes to the public or commonwealth. II. Those which are due from him to the court, his professional brethren, and his client. I. The dignity and importance of the Profession of the Law, in a public point of view, can hardly be over-estimated. It is in its relation to society at large that it is proposed to consider it. This may be done by showing its influence upon legislation and jurisprudence. These are the right and left hands of government in carrying out the great purposes of society. By legislation is meant the making of law-its primary enactment or subsequent (9) |