Mr. F. S. White: I move we adjourn to meet at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Motion adopted. The President: The Secretary requests me to state that the members present will please come to his desk to get cards for the meeting tomorrow. Jackson's Lake, Saturday, July 13, 1912. The Association met at 10 o'clock A. M. pursuant to adjournment. Mr. Sims: The Secretary has called my attention to the fact that the report of the Central Council and the Bills attached to it, were simply received and filed. It is the desire of the Central Council that the Bills be approved by the Association. It is with reference to abolishing the sub-Section of the Code on limitation for disbarment to one year, and one or two other matters. I hope that the Association approve the bills attached to the report. There are three bills attached to the report which the Central Council consider almost essential to the efficient work of the Council in sustaining the ethics of the profession on disbarment. If it be desired to discuss them, we ask that the report be set down for some time during the day. (1) Directing that the form of written complaint shall not be subject to demurrer. (2) Security for costs abolished. (3) Statute of limitations. of one year abolished. (4) The answer of the accused need not be under oath. We ask that the Association approve those bills, to be reported to the Committee on Legislative Enactment. Mr. O'Neal: I second the motion. Mr. Callahan: What provision have you with reference to the statute? Mr. Sims: Abolish all limitations; that was the former law. Mr. Callahan: I think there ought to be a limitation to everything; I think some reasonable time should be fixed, one year is too short. It is like everything else, a man's witnesses might die, or leave the county, and he would be exposed to prosecution years afterwards. Mr. Sims: We are willing to make it three or six years; it is the time to adopt that amendment now. I will amend by making it five years. Amendment adopted, and Bills reported by Central Council approved and referred to Committee on Legislative Enactment. The President: The next order of business before the Association is the Report of the Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, by the Chairman, N. D. Godbold, Esq. Mr. Callahan: The matter before the Association last evening had not been disposed of. I move that the paper by Mr. Letcher, be referred to the Judicial Commission. Mr. O'Neal: I second the motion. Motion adopted. The President: The Report of the Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, is next in order. Mr. Godbold: I will state that I communicated with the other members of the Committee, but this report is really the product of two members of the committee. I will now read the report. (Appendix.) The President: The report is before the Association for discussion. Mr. Brickell: I move that the report be received and filed and referred to the Committee on Legislation. Mr. H. F. Reese: I find myself in thorough accord with this report except as to one proposition, and that is the repeal of the statute recommended by this report. Under the old law when applicants were examined, my county was one of the few counties that demanded a bona fide examination. A committee was appointed to examine the candidate, and I suppose being a young lawyer I was put on more of these examining boards, I was put on more of these committees, than the other members of the bar. Absolutely, Mr. President, without exception, the best examination I ever heard from any man was a young man nineteen years old. He was put through the most rigid examination. As a matter of fact, after we had examined him enough to find out whether he had sufficient learning, we examined him to see if we could stump him, and we could not do it. He was a young man nineteen years old, and had never been to a law school, educated in Greensboro, afterwards practiced in Marengo county. He stood the best examination of any young man I have ever seen. The mind, like the body, does not develop the same in all men. Mr. President, a man that possesss the requirements mentally, morally and intellectually when nineteen or twenty years old with the precautions put around him by this law, ought not to be denied the privilege of entering the Bar. I am against that part of it-and I don't know exactly the parliamentary form to put it before the Association, but I amend the motion offered by Mr. Brickell, by providing that the report be approved with the exception of the recommendation as to the repealing section. Mr. Brickell: I will say for the benefit of Mr. Reese, my motion is not to approve or disapprove, it is to receive, file and refer to the Committee on Legislation for consideration. Mr. H. F. Reese: I move to amend that motion with the amendment that it is the sense of this Association that that part of the report is disapproved by the Association. Mr. Callahan: as I I have seen a thousand lawyers not quite as old as I am, that I thought knew as much law as did; and I have seen a good many older that I thought did not know as much law as I know. I do not believe in putting strings on anybody. If a man is capable of being a lawyer at eighteen, let him go to work. Referring this to a committee, an impression might go out that the Bar Association approved of those things. For that reason I do not believe that it ought to be allowed to go in that shape. There is another thing I don't like about this legal education and admission to the Bar, that I expect I might be in a minority on, but I don't believe that it is a recommendation to the University of Alabama, that it is a sort of infant industry that must be protected. There is an idea in the minds of many, if a man has money enough he might choose Columbia or one or two other schools in the nation that possibly could educate him according to his ideas, and fit him for the practice of the law, just as well as the University of Alabama. I am not making any war on the University at all, but I believe that a man who holds a certificate of efficiency from one of the large Universities of the Nation, ought to be allowed to practice law in Alabama on the same terms as one who holds it from the University of Alabama. It strikes me that it is unfair to the man who lives outside of Alabama, a young man that wants to come to Alabama and make it his home, when he comes here from the literary department of one of the greatest universities in this country-and also in law-when he comes down here he is put to an examination from which the young man just out of the University of Alabama is excused. I am opposed to any such system as that. Mr. Letcher: Mr. President, I agree with Mr. Callahan in part, but I agree with the converse. I believe that graduates, no matter what school they graduate from, ought to be required to stand an examination by the Examining Board. Take the medical profession, and they have to pass an examination, and I am informed the graduates of colleges many of them fail on examination by the State Board, and I think it is not right— Mr. Dixon: I rise to a point of order. I do not think the question is whether a graduate of the University should be examined or not, the discussion is on the report of this committee, which has no reference to that matter. The President: As the chair recalls it, there is nothing in the report along that line. Mr. Letcher: This is a report on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. Mr. Dixon: It is only to refer it to a committee, and the question being discussed is wholly out of order. The President: The discussion being germane to the subject, I overrule the point of order. Mr. Letcher: I think, even if a graduate of a University they ought to be required to stand this examination, and be put on a par with any other man. I do not think that it would hurt, but would help the University to say that those applicants from the University of Alabama have stood the same test as any other man who wants to practice law in Alabama. I think any man who wants to practice law in Alabama ought to stand the examination before the State Board. I move, as a substitute, that the Committee on Legislation be instructed |