Everyday Ethics Author:Yale University Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LAWYER AND CLIENT In discussing the relation of attorney and client it is my aim to be practical rather than rhetorical. The subject has indeed its temptation... more »s. When we remember that it is one of the three sacredly confidential relations, classified under the phrases, priest and penitent, physician and patient, counsel and client, and note with what zealous care the law puts a seal upon the mouths of priest, physician, and counsel as to information which they gain from penitent, patient, and client in the course of their ministrations in respect of the souls, bodies, and rights of those who confide in them, it is not easy to forego an attempt at oratorical flight. We are told, however, to resist the devil and he will flee from us. So I shall confine myself to the prosaic task of setting before you various rules which pertain to the subject in hand. I want to send you out of this room, not with a hazy idea that the lecturer has made a fine speech, but with certain principles fixed in your minds so firmly that you will not forget them at a time when you may need to apply them in your own affairs. You are a body of young men, fitting yourselves for the serious business of life. This lectureship has been foundedfor use, not ornament. A few of you may become lawyers, but the majority will be clients. Not necessarily in litigation. May Heaven spare you from the unsatisfactory fate of spending your time, your money, your nervous force upon a legal lottery. I have practised law for nearly forty years, and have had my triumphs as well as defeats, but it is my deliberate judgment, based upon observation of others as well as experience of my own, that litigation is more than ever a toss-up. It is an old-time proverb that no one can tell what twelve men in a box will do. In these latter da...« less