Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1913
Abstract
That the practice of law and the administration of justice are under the fire of popular distrust and criticism of extraordinary intensity requires no proof. A fact of which there is evidence in numerous contemporary books, in almost every magazine, in the daily papers, in the remarks, or the questions, or it may be in the sneers of one's friends, requires no further demonstration. The only questions of importance to be answered are to what extent this criticism and this distrust are well founded, what are the remedies for such defects as exist, and what are we lawyers going to do about it. Shall we allow our just indignation at such of these criticisms as grow out of ignorance and prejudice to blind us to those that are true, or to steel us into an attitude of indifference to, or of assumed contempt, for this popular outcry? This would indeed be a course of folly not to say of professional suicide, one which would inevitably result in the laying of alien and unskilled hands upon the temple of justice, in crude and ignorant efforts to repair the breaches in the temple walls and to remodel them to meet the new necessities of changed, radically changed, times and conditions. That this is no fancied danger we have had already convincing evidence. Our delay as a profession in correcting defects in our legal institutions, and in adjusting them to the present day needs of business, industry and contemporary society in general, has afforded the opportunity, if indeed it has not actually invited, from outsiders countless suggestions of alleged reforms and some well organized and powerful efforts to accomplish them. These have ranged from the foolish and sometimes dangerous nostrums of ignorant quacks and demagogues to the well-meant, thoughtful proposals of serious minded and patriotic men. Some even of the latter type of plans are utterly impracticable, or ineffectual or positively harmful while others contain suggestions of merit, which deserve the serious and respectful attention of the Bar.
Recommended Citation
Bates, Henry M. "Popular Discontent with Law and Some Proposed Remedies." In Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Michigan State Bar Association, 99-113. Lansing, Mich.: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., 1913.