and Law Practice. presumably taken down from their lips by the attorney or his clerk. Then the whole is folded in brief form, and indorsed, and this indorsement is to the counsel the most interesting part of the brief. Here is a specimen of it : —
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clerk when the brief is delivered, but when the attorney is a regular client this is not always done, and, indeed, in some instances a " fee list " is allowed to accumulate against the regular client to the end of the assizes, or, in London, to the end of the term. All counsel's fees are still reckoned in " guineas YORK SPRING ASSIZES. although the guinea (equal to ¿ is. od. or $5.25) has disappeared from English coin Lent, 1894. Coram, Mr. JUSTICE WILLS. age, and the payment is made in £. s. d. JOHN THOMAS, Plaintiff. A counsel's fee of i guinea really means JAMES TOMKINS, Defendant. £i 33. 6d., two shillings and sixpence being Action of Replevin. added for counsel's clerk, whether he has a clerk or not. Where the fee exceeds 5 BRIEF FOR PLAINTIFF. gnas. the clerk's fee is higher, according to a Mr. Arthur, Q. C. well understood ascending scale. The fee Retainer, 2 gnas. Brief, 50" of counsel is not payment, or remuneration Consult. 2" but merely an " honorarium." There is no with you, Mr. MALTBY and Mr. HORN. contract express or implied between counsel MARCHAM & MARCHAM, and his client (either the attorney client or Attorneys for Plaintiff. the actual litigant), and therefore no action As many duplicates of this brief are made can be brought by counsel to recover the as there are counsel to be instructed, each fees, on the one hand, or against him for brief being indorsed with the name of the breach or neglect on the other. But the counsel to whom it is to be delivered, and advantage of this principle is wholly on the stating on the indorsement the names of the side of counsel. No attorney dare leave his other counsel who will be " with him " and counsel's fees unpaid. There is an esprit with whom the " consultation " is to be ar de corps among counsel, quite as effectual ranged. The consultation on circuit is and arbitrary as any trades-unionism. Let usually held either in one of the consulta an attorney be known to have repudiated tion rooms of the court, or at the " lodg his counsel's fees, and he will soon find his ings" of the senior counsel. The fee must briefs declined and his business at a practi be indorsed on the brief before delivery, and cal standstill, for if counsel are dependent cannot afterwards be altered save by the ad on attorneys, the attorneys are helpless with dition of " refreshers " or further consulta out counsel. In my early years counsel tions. Such a thing is unknown as a con never complained of the smallness of their tingent fee or the increase of the fee by rea fees, and either were, or affected and were pre son of the successful result of the trial. It sumed to be, wholly indifferent to the amount can never be in any degree contingent on of them, and I remember the haughty re the result. If the trial be a protracted one, proof which an eminent counsel — afterwards "refreshers " are usually marked de die in a distinguished chief justice — administered diem after the first full day, and further con to an attorney for apologizing for the smallsultations are appointed at the request of ness of the fee, as if he were supposed to be any of the counsel; but what is called the working for money! But of late years "brief fee," as indorsed before the brief is counsel have come down from the high accepted, is afterwards unalterable. It is horse and become much more mercenary the proper thing to pay the fees to counsel's and practical. It would yet be quite a
