Report of the West Virginia Bar Association: Including Proceedings of the ... Annual Meeting, Volume 24

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Includes a directory of members.
 

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Page 160 - It is disreputable to hunt up defects in titles or other causes of action and inform thereof in order to be employed to bring suit, or to breed litigation by seeking out those with claims for personal injuries or those having any other grounds of action in order to secure them as clients...
Page 158 - Go in Supporting a Client's Cause. Nothing operates more certainly to create or to foster popular prejudice against lawyers as a class, and to deprive the profession of that full measure of public esteem and confidence which belongs to the proper discharge of its duties than does the false claim, often set up by the unscrupulous in defense of questionable transactions, that it is the duty of the lawyer to do whatever may enable him to succeed in winning his client's cause.
Page 160 - Newspaper publications by a lawyer as to pending or anticipated litigation may interfere with a fair trial in the courts and otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice. Generally they are to be condemned. If the extreme circumstances of a particular case justify a statement to the public, it is unprofessional to make it anonymously. An ex parte reference to the facts should not go beyond quotation from the records and papers on file in the court; but even in extreme...
Page 162 - The miscarriages to which justice is subject, by reason of surprises and disappointments in evidence and witnesses, and through mistakes of juries and errors of Courts, even though only occasional, admonish lawyers to beware of bold and confident assurances to clients, especially where the employment may depend upon such assurance. Whenever the controversy will admit of fair adjustment, the client should be advised to avoid or to end the litigation.
Page 162 - TO CONTROL THE INCIDENTS OF THE TRIAL As to incidental matters pending the trial, not affecting the merits of the cause, or working substantial prejudice to the rights of the client, such as forcing the opposite lawyer to trial when he is under affliction or bereavement; forcing the trial on a particular day to the injury of the opposite lawyer when no harm will result from a trial at a different time; agreeing to an extension...
Page 159 - The lawyer owes entire devotion to the interest of the client, warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of his rights, and the exertion of his utmost learning and ability, to the end that nothing be taken or be withheld from him, save by the rules of law.
Page 157 - Courts and judicial officers, in the rightful exercise of their functions, should always receive the support and countenance of attorneys against unjust criticism and popular clamor ; and it is an attorney's duty to give them his moral support in all proper ways, and particularly by setting a good example in his own person of obedience to law.
Page 165 - ... .Casual and slight services should be rendered without charge by one attorney to another in his personal cause; but when the service goes beyond this, an attorney may be charged as other clients. Ordinary advice and services to the family of a deceased attorney should be rendered without charge in most instances, and where the circumstances make it proper to charge, the fees should generally be less than in case of other clients.
Page 164 - ... appearance for others in cases likely to arise out of the transaction, and in which there is a reasonable expectation...
Page 157 - ... and should be sedulously avoided. A selfrespecting independence in the discharge of the attorney's duties, which at the same time does not withhold the courtesy and respect due the judge's station, is the only just foundation for cordial, personal and official relations between bench and bar. All attempts by means beyond these to gain special personal consideration and favor of a judge are disreputable. 4.

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