Their actions, however, since these charges were made against them, commend them strongly to our consideration. Not only did they frankly meet the charges and stipulate all the facts, but they have severed their relations with the Corporation Company of Delaware, and have discontinued the practices for which they were criticized by the complaining Association.

Under these circumstances, while we cannot wholly overlook their acts, which clearly amounted to professional misconduct, we find no occasion for administering any further discipline than a censure.

concur.

EMPLOYMENT OF ATTORNEY BY CORPORATION TO GIVE LEGAL ADVICE TO ITS MEMBERS. N. Y. Committee. Question 108: A group of business men form a membership corporation for the purpose, amongst many other things, of employing an attorney under an annual retainer to supply them (a) with reports upon the state of the law applicable to any given state of facts of interest in connection with the business of any of the members, and (b) to furnish legal advice to the members in connection with any of their business affairs. The corporation does not advertise that it furnishes advice, nor does it receive inquiries, but it directs any member applying for advice, to communicate directly with the attorney and to receive the advice directly from him. The attorney is not in any way under the control of the association in connection with advice so given and he exercises his own discretion and independent judgment with respect to all applications for advice. I might add that in the letters sent out to its members, the corporation makes the following statement: "All inquiries as to legal matters should be addressed directly to the general counsel of the association, John Doe, at this office, who will reply direct. He will make no charge for information as to the state of the law applicable to any state of facts, except where unusual or extended research is required, when he will, before proceeding, notify the inquirer as to the exact cost."

The service which the attorney renders to the individual members directly, does not include any legal service of any character, other than the reporting upon the state of the law and the giving of advice in connection with the questions submitted. The members pay annual dues, out of which the lawyer is compensated. Is his position unethical or illegal in this connection?

Answer: In the opinion of the Committee, the practice referred to comes within the condemnation of section 280, Penal Law [Consol. Laws, c. 40], as construed in Matter of Co-operative Law Co., 198 N. Y. 479 [92 N. E. 15, 32 L. R. A. (N. S.) 55, 139 Am. St. Rep. 839, 19 Ann. Cas. 879]; Matter of National Jewelers' Board of Trade,

New York Law Journal, March 2, 1916; and Meisel v. National Jewelers' Board of Trade, 90 Misc. Rep. 19 [152 N. Y. Supp. 913], and is therefore prohibited to members of the New York Bar.

In re SECURED HOLDINGS CORPORATION.

BIRDSEYE v. KING.

(Supreme Court of New York, Special Term, New York County, 1915. 88 Misc. Rep. 706, 151 N. Y. Supp. 422.)

Action by Clarence F. Birdseye against Henry G. King and others. On motion by the Secured Holdings Corporation for reargument of motion to cancel and strike from the docket a lis pendens. Motion for reargument, and original motion to cancel and strike lis pendens, granted.

GIEGERICH, J. * The first question to be considered is whether the suspension of the plaintiff from practice as an attorney has the effect of preventing him from continuing to act in person in the prosecution of his suit. I am satisfied that the act of the Appellate Division in suspending him from practice was not intended to have, and does not have, such an effect.

Section 55 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that: "A party to a civil action who is of full age may prosecute or defend the same in person or by attorney, at his election, unless he has been judicially declared to be incompetent to manage his affairs."

Section 65 provides: "If an attorney dies, is removed or suspended, or otherwise becomes disabled to act, at any time before judgment in an action, no further proceeding shall be taken in the action, against the party for whom he appeared, until thirty days after notice to appoint another attorney, has been given to that party, either personally, or in such manner as the court directs."

It is argued on behalf of the plaintiff that this provision is applicable to his case under the present circumstances. I do not think it is applicable. The plaintiff is not prosecuting his action as an attorney, but in his individual capacity. The fact that he is an attorney is purely fortuitous, and of no consequence whatever. His rights are no more and no less than as though he were a plumber or an engineer, and the fact that he has been deprived of his special privilege to practice as an attorney no more affects his individual right to prosecute his own action than would the loss by a plumber or an engineer of his special license or privilege deprive him of his individual right to appear for himself in legal proceedings. By the order of the Appellate Division he is "suspended from practice as an attorney and counselor at law," but there is no prohibition against his appearing in court and prosecuting or defending an action in his individual capacity.

The motion for a reargument is therefore granted, and the original motion to cancel the lis pendens and strike it from the county clerk's docket is granted, with $10 costs against Clarence F. Birdseye.10 Settle order on notice.

SECTION 3.-THE LAWYER AS AN OFFICER
I. HIS OFFICE

BARRISTERS ARE NOT OFFICERS OF THE COURT IN ENGLAND. James Robert Vernam Marchant, Barrister-at-Law (1905) p. 30: Barristers are not, as solicitors are, officers of the Supreme Court, and the Court has no special control over them, and although it has been said that the Superior Courts have, by virtue of their inherent jurisdiction, power to suspend from practicing before them particular barristers who have been guilty of misconduct, which renders them unfit to practise, there is, it is believed, no reported instance in recent times of the exercise of such a power in England.11

ATTORNEYS AS OFFICERS OF THE COURT IN ENGLAND. Alexander Pulling, A Summary of the Law and Practice Relating to Attorneys (3d Ed., 1862) p. 395, note (i): The 4 Hen. 4, c. 18, seems first to have made attorneys officers of the Courts by directing their names to be placed on the Roll. This statute seems only to have included attorneys in the Court of Common Pleas, and attorneys of other courts or solicitors were not deemed to be privileged

10 See Philbrook v. Superior Court, 111 Cal. 31, 43 Pac. 402 (1896). Though a disbarred attorney may argue his own case, it has been held that an attorney who has a contingent fee contract and thereafter is disbarred has no right to conduct the contingent fee case. Leonard v. Toledo, St. L. & W. R. Co. (D. C.) 232 Fed. 281 (1916). This was decided in view of a state contingent fee contract doctrine which recognized such contracts when not coupled with a provision giving the attorney exclusive control of the case or preventing the client from settling without his attorney's consent, and which gave the attorney at the most only an equitable interest in the subject-matter of the contingent fee contract. In addition to pointing out that the disbarred attorney was not the party in interest in the litigation, the court remarked that the attorney's application for permission to try the case was really an application to practice, and to grant it would be to reverse its disbarment adjudication. On the extent of the restriction on the right of a disbarred or suspended lawyer or unlicensed person to transact legal business for another, see note in 24 L. R. A. (N. S.) 750.

11 "Thus as we have seen the advocate was not an officer of state or an official of the Royal Courts of Justice, but merely a trained and selected person to whom the courts on the recommendation of his Inn of Court gave audience for the purpose of being informed by him in the course of his representation of his clients."-Edward S. Cox-Sinclair, The Bars of United States and England, 19 Green Bag, 702, 703.

as officers. Year Book Hil., 1 Hen. 7, 12; Corners Case, Noy, 112. Solicitors 12 were indeed formerly regarded as agents merely in the soliciting causes for those who employed them, and had therefore no power to appear formally like attorneys in court in the place and stead of the client, and could hardly be deemed court officers until the 2 Geo. 2, c. 23, §§ 2 and 3, required them also to be formally admitted and enrolled. At the present day, however, when the same qualifications and a similar form of admission are required for both attorneys and solicitors, they may equally be regarded as officers of the courts in which they practice.

LAWYERS AS OFFICERS OF THE COURT IN THE UNITED STATES. Crocker, J., in Cohen v. Wright, 22 Cal. 293, 315: Attorneys are officers of the court, and as such are subject to the control of the court before which they practice, which has power to summarily investigate the dealings and transactions between them and their clients in cases before it, as also to disbar them for misconduct and deprive them of the privilege of practicing their profession. The books are full of decisions in which they are termed officers in this sense. And in some cases the courts have said, arguendo, that they are "public officers," on the ground that they receive stated fees fixed. by statute, and are subject to the control of the court. Walmsby v. Booth, Barnardiston Ch. 478; Merritt v. Lambert, 10 Paige [N. Y.] 352, affirmed without any opinion under the style of Wallis v. Loubat in 2 Denio [N. Y.] 607; Waters v. Whittemore, 22 Barb. [N. Y.] 595. But none of the cases we have been referred to hold directly, as a point actually decided in the case, that they are "officers," or "public officers," within the legal meaning of those terms when used in statutes and constitutions, except the case of Wood in 1 Hopk. Ch. [N. Y.] 6, which is clearly overruled by the numerous cases to the contrary.18 We therefore hold that an attorney at law is not an officer, within the meaning of that term as used in the constitution.14

12 That is, persons habitually undertaking the care and superintendence of the legal affairs of others, but not clothed with any express power of attorney to bind their principals.-Alexander Pulling, A Summary of the Law and Practice Relating to Attorneys (3d Ed. 1862) p. 7.

18 "The bar is no unimportant part of the court, and its members are officers of the court. Thomas v. Steele, 22 Wis. 207 [1867]; Cothren v. Connaughton, 24 Wis. 134 [1869]. See Bacon's Abr. Attorney, H.; 1 Tidd's Pr. 60; 3 Black. 25; 1 Kent, 306; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 18 L. Ed. 366 [1866]. And if officers of the court, certainly, in some sense, officers of the state for which the court acts. In re Wood, Hopk. Ch. [N. Y.] 6 [1823]. This is not really denied in In the Matter of Attorneys' Oaths, 20 Johns. (N. Y.) 492 [1823], decided in the same year. And if it were, we have no doubt that the Chancellor was correct, and that attorneys and counsellors of a court, though not properly public officers, are quasi officers of the state whose justice is administered by the court."-Ryan, C. J., in Matter of Mosness, 39 Wis. 509, 510, 20 Am. Rep. 55 (1876).

14 "Attorneys at law [of a United States court] are officers of the court, admitted as such by its order; but it is a mistake to suppose that they are

II. HIS OATH 15

EARLY FORMS OF OATHS OF SERJEANTS. Josiah Henry Benton, The Lawyer's Official Oath and Office (1909) pp. 25, 26: The earliest authentic forms of the lawyer's oath in England now to be found are those of the Serjeant-at-Law and of the King's Serjeant in an ancient Roll of Oaths in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which

officers of the United States, as they are neither elected nor appointed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for the election or appointment of such officers. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 378 [18 L. Ed. 366 (1866)].”— Clifford, J., in Savings Bank v. Ward, 100 U. S. 195, 198, 25 L. Ed. 621 (1879). "An attorney at law is a sworn officer of the court. Some one has said that an attorney's duty is well expressed in the Institutes in these words: 'These are the precepts of the law: to live honorably; to injure nobody; to render to every one his due.'"-Chase, J., in In re Holland, 110 App. Div. 799, 800, 97 N. Y. Supp. 202, 203 (1906).

But it has been asserted that: "If we divest ourselves of the influence of preconceived notions, this will appear to be the true view of the matter. An attorney is neither a public officer nor an officer of the court, in any proper legal sense. He exercises a' quasi-public franchise, a privilege, not under the court but under the law; not at the will or pleasure, or subject to any arbitrary judgment, of the court, but as of legal right, under conditions prescribed by the law-making power. If this view be correct, the exercise by the court of any power over him as its own officer, subject as such to its control, is unwarranted in law."-Albert E. Pillsbury, The Legal Relations Between Bench and Bar, 32 Amer. L. Rev. 161, at page 165.

*

*

A suggestion that trial lawyers be turned into public officers has been made. "It must always be remembered that the profession of law is instituted among men for the purpose of aiding the administration of justice. * * As long as private individuals are at liberty to use an officer who is a quasi-public officer as a representative, and pay him out of their private means, so long will the ends of justice to a great extent be diverted from that source. I make this suggestion that it might be worthy * of the profession in general to consider the proposition to make the members of the profession officers of the public almost exclusively, and that remuneration be derived from the public in the same manner as judges are now paid. Then again, as part of the expenses of the litigation, the client engaging the services of an attorney could then be required to pay into the public treasury a certain sum of money for the services of counsel. Counsel would then be directly responsible to the public, and his only object in the practice of his profession would then be to aid in the proper administration of justice."— Christian Doerfler, The Duty of the Lawyer as an Officer of the Court, 24 Green Bag, 74, 75, 76. See, also, Wesley W. Hyde, Reorganization of the Legal Profession, 8 Illinois Law Review, 239, 243.

15 "Why is any oath required for admission to the practice of the law? No oath is required by law for admission to practise in any other profession, even where qualifications to practice are prescribed or ascertained by examinations required by law, as in the case of physicians. But an official oath has always been required for admission to the practice of the law. Why is it required? What is its significance, and what obligation does it impose? "The significance of the lawyer's oath is that it stamps the lawyer as an officer of the state, with rights, powers and duties as important as those of the Judges of the Courts themselves. When a lawyer is admitted to practice and takes the required oath of office he has as much right to discharge the duties of his office as a representative or senator has to sit and act in the Legislature, or a Governor to exercise the functions of a chief magistrate. He has as much right to appear in Court and be heard for a party to a cause as a Judge has to hear and decide the cause. A lawyer is not the servant of his client. He is not the servant of the Court. He is an officer of the Court,