LAWYERS' CODE OF HONOUR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1106, 20 April 1911, Page 5

LAWYERS' CODE OF HONOUR.

INTERESTING SPEECH. . The high code of honour which should be maintained in the legal profession was n theme emphasised by Mr. H. R. Curlewis in a lecture on "The Brotherhood of the Law," delivered last, week to the University Law Society in Sydney. He eaid he was not sure that they were not a little lax in Australia in this regard. If a man in the profession did something which placed him svtside the Dale of common decency they owed it to the honour of the profession not to do as was too often done—to treat him as he had been treated before. In other countries 'there seemed.to be a healthier tone. Men Biich as the man who defended the Tiehboxne claimant—who tried to rob an infant of jts inheritance and to fix shame on an honourable woman—ought to bo cast out, not only from the profession, nut from the fellowship of the profession. A man declared unworthy of the profession ought not'to be allowed to canvass Us members for signatures to a petition for his reinstatement. He would not advnoate keeping a man who made one slip out of the profession for ever, but his ?etition should be laid on the table of the .aw_ Institute, so that those who wished to sign it. could do so without canvass. Honourable men. disliked hurting a man's feelings, and for that reason often signed such, petitions when canvassed. It was often said that the law was a close corporation—a union. But the \inion of the. . law, whatever it was designed for, work- • erf for the protection of the public rather Man -for the legal profession.