An Essay on Professional Ethics

Sharswood gave these lectures to the law class at the University of Pennsylvania and printed them in 1854; this is the 1860 second edition. He works through what a lawyer owes the court, then his professional brethren, then the client, in that order, and answers the hard cases directly. An advocate may defend a man he believes guilty, since a trial according to law is every accused person’s constitutional right, but he should refuse a civil claim he knows to be unjust. Private approaches to a judge, misleading an opponent, and sharp practice all draw rebuke. On fees he holds that a poor man with an honest cause must never go unrepresented, and that suing a client for payment disgraces the bar. Alabama’s 1887 code of ethics drew on these pages, and the ABA’s 1908 Canons on Alabama.