BEST PAID PROFESSION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, Issue 17692, 5 July 1927, Page 2

BEST PAID PROFESSION

VAST FORTUNES MADE. Sir Edward Marshall-Hall, most famous of Britain’s criminal advocates left £110,644, the bulk of which great fortune he earned himself as a practising barrister. Yet, compared with many of his contemporaries, MarshallHall earned quite a. moderate income. “Fashionable” barristers earn fees which far outstrip the earnings of the most famous among leaders of other professions. For example, the most successful surgeons cannot hope for ail income much over £12,000 a year there are, perhaps, two living surgeons jvho earn more—but the successful advocate in a. good yean will make twice, even thrice, that sum. • Hence the great fortunes made at the Bar, a profession which lias founded more great families of title than any other.

, REFUSED £50,000 BRIEF. Mr Justice Hbrndge recently expressed the opinion that fashionable K.C.’s received fees which would have been considered fabulous a few years ago. He was, perhaps, thinking of the famous Lord Eldon, who once gave a written opinion on a very difficult legal point for onei guinea. But lie may have overlooked the other side of the picture. The law of supply and demand has always functioned in a spectacular way whore lawyers’ fees are concerned. The man in demand has always been able to amass a vast fortune by demanding—and getting—amazingly high payment for his services. When a certain Gaekwar of Baroda, was charged with murder ho sent to England for Fir Henry Hawkins to defend him. Sir Henry was offered 10,000 guineas to go to India for this one case. Ho refused on the ground that it woud not compensate him for what he would be missing in Hie English courts. The Gaekwar’s agents raised the offer to £50,000. Still the great advocate did not deem the journey worth his while. Lord Oxford once refused a brief marked 10,000 guineas; but for political reasons, and not because lie could really afford to turn up liis nose at such a fee. . . , There are practising hamsters who consistently earn well over £25,000 a year, but they arc not always those whoso names are most familiar to the public. Great criminal lawyers are generally most famous, but they earn far less than advocates " practising in the Chancery Court.

,SIR JOHN SIMON’S RECORD. Perhaps no advocate in the whole history of British courts has ever earned so vast an income as Sir John Simon. What that income is has been a matter of keen speculation among brother barristers. Some place it as high as £50,000 a year! , . . But while it is true that the favoured few among famous lawyers earn stupendous fortunes, it is also true that the rank and file faro less opulently. There are K.C.’s who do not make even £IOOO a year, and one or two not even half that sum. The average barrister probably fares about the same as the fairly successful business man, sometimes not so well.