THIS COMPLETE, COMPACT, AND UP-TO-DATE LAW LIBRARY IS THE MOST ESSENTIAL PURCHASE A LAW STUDENT CAN MAKE It Comprises The only complete and the best Statement of the Law of your own State, of the other States, and of the Federal Courts, with citations of All Authorities and Boundless Quotations from the Cases Quoted and Cited by the Highest Courts; more than 250,000 times This coupon will bring you the particulars f our easy term offer to Law students. If you give your phone number our educational resentative will communicate with you upon his arval in your city. His services are free to you. He will demonstrate the short cuts in legal research ind explain our several student helps. Name Home Address Home Phone number.. It Gives Every Rule of Law, followed by Judicial Reasons for the rules, with Every Exception, Limitation, Qualification, and Extension, Supported by All the Cases from All Jurisdictions, with Historical Developments, Leading Cases, Contra Cases, Important Dicta, and Judicial Interpretations of Statutes and Words, Phrases, Dean M.R.Kirkwood. 1c. Paid Brooklyn, N. Y. Permit No. 358 % Leland Stanford Univ. Law School Stanford Univ. Calif. LEGAL ODDITIES Linnæus then in his posses- which had not since returned. sion, he supposed it to be a He had since mentioned this non-descript species of the tincture to some physicians, lobelia; that by chewing a leaf and has understood from of it, he was puked two or them, that some patients have three times; that he after- been violently puked by a teawards repeated the experi- spoonful of it; but whether ment with the same effect; this difference of effect arose that he inquired of his neigh- from a state of the patients, or bor, on whose ground the from the manner of preparing plant was found, for its trivial the tincture, he did not know. name. He did not know of The solicitor-general also any, but was apprized of its stated that, before the deemetic quality, and informed ceased had applied to the the doctor that the chewing of prisoner, the latter had adone of the capsules operated ministered the like medicines as an emetic, and that the with those given to the dechewing more would prove ceased, to several of his pacathartic. In a paper soon tients, who had died under afte communicated by the his hands; and to prove this said he was dying. The pris- doctor to the American Acad- statement, he called several oner then asked him how far emy, he mentioned the plant, witnesses, of whom but one the medicine had got down. with the name of the lobelia appeared. He, on the con The deceased, laying his hand medica. He did not know of trary, testified that he had on his breast, answered its being applied to any medi- been the prisoner's patient for "here"; on which the prisoner cal use until the last Septem- an oppression at his stomach; observed that the medicine ber, when, being severely that he took his emetic powwould soon get down, and afflicted with the asthma, ders several times in three of unscrew his navel; meaning, Doctor Drury, of Marblehead, four days, and was relieved Commonwealth versus Samuel oner his coffee. The deceased, as was supposed by the hear-informed him that a tincture from his complaint, which Thompson after puking, in which he ers, that it would operate a of it had been found beneficial had not since returned. And brought up phlegm, but no cathartic. Between nine and in asmatic complaints. Dr. C. there was no evidence in the food, was ordered to a warm ten o'clock in the evening, the then made for himself a tinc- cause, that the prisoner, in the bed, where he lay in a profuse deceased lost his reason, and ture, by filling a common por- course of his very novel prac sweat all night. Tuesday was seized with convulsion morning the deceased left his fits; two men being required pouring upon it as much spirit accident among his patients. ter bottle with the plant, tice, had experienced any fatal bed, and appeared to be com- to hold him in bed. After he as the bottle would hold, and fortable, complaining only of was thus seized with convul- keeping the bottle in a sand debility; and in the afternoon sions, the prisoner got down heat for three or four days. he was visited by the prisoner, his throat one or two doses of this tincture he took a who administered two more more of his emetic powders; table-spoonful, which of his emetic powders in suc- and remarked to the father duced no nausea, and had a practice with much success; cession, which puked the de- of the deceased, that his son slight pungent taste. In ten and that the death of the ceased, who, during the opera- got the hyps like the devil, minutes after, he repeated the deceased was unexpected, and tion, drank of the prisoner's but that his medicines would potion, which produced some could not be imputed to him coffee, and complained of fetch him down; meaning, as appeared to as a crime. But as the Court On the trial, it appeared in much distress. On Wednes- the witness understood, would stimulate the whole internal were satisfied that the evi evidence, that the prisoner, day morning, the prisoner compose him. The next surface of the stomach. In dence produced on the part some time in the preceding ten minutes, he again repeated of the Commonwealth did not December, came into Beverly, the potion, which puked him support the indictment, the where the deceased then lived, announced himself as a phycited in his extremities a two or three times, and ex- prisoner was not put on his defence. sician, and professed an ability The chief justice charged strong sensation, like irritato cure all fevers, whether tion; but he was relieved from the jury; and the prisoner was black, gray, green, or yellow; declaring that the country was a paroxysm of the asthma, acquitted. much imposed upon by physicians, who were all wrong, if he was right. He possessed several drugs, which he used as medicines, and to which he gave singular names. One he called coffee; another, wellmy-gristle; and a third, ramcats. He had several patients in Beverly and in Salem, previous to Monday, the second of January when the deceased, having been for several days confined to his house by a cold, requested that the prisoner might be sent for as a physician. (6 Mass. 134) At the beginning of the term, the prisoner Thompson was indicted for the wilful murder of Ezra Lovett, Jun., by giving him a poison, called lobelia, on the ninth day of January last, of which he died on the next day. On the twentieth day of December, at an adjournment of this term, the prisoner was tried for this offence, before the chief justice, and the judges Sewall and Parker. came, and after causing the morning, the regular physi- From the evidence it ap- was and nausea, pro The defence stated by the prisoner's counsel was, that he had, for several years, and in different places, pursued his THE LAW STUDENT -$1.50-for any one 2.50 for any two 3.25 for all three Very neatly bound in Green Cloth ORDER BLANK THE AMERICAN LAW BOOK CO., Vol. 1 Send me Vol. 2 of The Law Student for which I the bark of bayberry-bush, Our stock is limited so if you wish to secure any or all of these which was not supposed to volumes do not delay in sending the attached order blank. have injured the deceased. PRICES:But the powder, which the prisoner said he chiefly relied upon in his practice, and which was the emetic so often administered by him to the deceased, was the pulverized plant, trivially called Indian tobacco. A Dr. French, of He accordingly came, and Sunday morning, the Salisbury, testified that this ordered a large fire to be debility increasing, the pris- plant. with this name, kindled to heat the room. He oner was sent for, and came well known in his part of the then placed the feet of the in the afternoon, when he ad- country, where it was indigedeceased, with his shoes off; ministered another of his nous, for its emetic qualities: on a stove of hot coals, and emetic powders with his cof- and that it was gathered and wrapped him in a thick blan- fee, which puked the deceased, preserved by some families, to ket, covering his head. In causing him much distress. be used as an emetic, for this situation he gave him a On Monday, he appeared which the roots, as well as powder in water, which im- comfortable, but with increas- the stalks and leaves, were mediately puked him. Three ing weakness, until the eve- administered; and that four minutes after, he repeated the ning when the prisoner visited grains of the powder was a dose, which in about two min- him, and administered another powerful puke. But a more utes operated violently. He of his emetic powders, and in minute description of this again repeated the dose. about twenty minutes repeated plant was given by the Rev. which in a short time operated the dose. This last dose did Dr. Cutler. He testified that with more violence. These not operate. The prisoner it was the lobelia inflata of doses were all given within then administered pearlash Linnæus: that many the space of half an hour, the mixed with water, and afterpatient in the mean time wards repeated his emetic podrinking copiously of a warm tions. The deceased appeared decoction, called by the pris- to be in great distress, and me. They were taking depositions. I was a young lawyer fresh out of college, well educated and well trained. At least most people, including myself, thought so. I had just been admitted to the Bar, having passed an extremely difficult two day written Bar Examination conducted by the Supreme Court of my State. Many failed it. My grade was a fraction of a percent under or above 94. I forget exactly. But I stood out well enough as college classes go, to attract the attention of the Chief Justice and win from him a recommendation for an opening in a very fine law office in a neighboring city of the same State. The opening was offered me. I took it. And my, how I wanted to make good! much. The day came. A friendly lawyer or two appeared, also a Judge from Canada, and the clients. We ushered them into the office library. The momentousness of it all, and the prominent position I held in the important event, filled me with pride, coupled with not a little awe. The appointed hour having arrived, the head of the firm remarked something about getting started, and turning my way addressed to me those seven frightful words-"The Notary will please swear the witness." If he had told me to climb out the tenth story window at my right, and fly to the moon, I could have complied just as easily. I hadn't the slightest idea how to swear anybody. There I stood, thoroughly familiar with all the important legal principles, competent, in so far as that knowledge went, to sit on the Supreme Bench Imagine my delight when of my State and apply them, a the head of the firm informed University man, a college grad me my first day that I was to uate, born and bred of a family act as Notary at the taking of of lawyers for generations back, some depositions. Perhaps but a miserable fizzle on my he noticed the flush of pleas- first job. ure come over my face. At any rate, he was quick to add that I would have nothing to I looked at the witness. PROGRESS OF RESEARCH TEST Another State in Line The Ex 1) BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 24 pages CHARLES WALTER DUMONT The limited space available here permits only a brief Mr. Dumont is President of The American Law Book He was born at Juneau, Wisconsin, coming as a New APRIL 1, 1927 NEWS OF THE Comparative Law School of Dr. D. S. Chen, LL.B., M.A., J.D., (Michigan) resigned from the faculty. Dr. Kung Shih, LL.B., LL.M. (Michigan), S.J.D. (Yale) has been appointed. Judge C. H. Chang, who resigned as judge and procurator of Shanghai district court in order to join the faculty, is offering new courses in Chinese law. Changes in the curriculum will bring the school up to the requirements of Chinese government in Chinese law. This I will not affect the present high standing in Anglo-American law. With the increase of electives the school is able to offer work leading to the LL.M.. Nine former graduates have enrolled for this work this year. Dean W. W. Blume has recently returned to the school after an absence of two years in the U. S. Enrollment in the school is as follows: Graduate students 9; third year 32; second year 27; first year 66, and subfreshmen 19, a total of 153. Southwestern University at Northport, Long Island, and then until now as President Beginning with the Septem- Following adoption by the thorization the examiners are mer. perous business, but he has earned for himself the love, Many years ago Mr. Dumont received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Ohio Northern University, in recogThe research feature of the nition of his scholarship and intellectual attainments, as well Ohio bar examination given in perhaps as a tribute to the interest he has taken in, and the Columbus, December 7th and help he has given to, law schools and law students. The name of this state can- 8th, will be continued at the Among the clubs and societies, of which Mr. Dumont is not be announced prior to mid-summer examination a member, are the Lotos Club of New York City, the New authorization of the test by there at the close of the pres- York Athletic Club, and the Empire State Society of the its Supreme Court, which au-ent school year. Sons of the American Revolution. Plans are now complete for the seven-story addition to the present quarters of the uniby September. The school versity, which will be ready will then be one of the most modern in the country, and will be equipped to handle in excess of three thousand students in its department of Law and Business Administration combined. (Continued page 6, col. 1) 1 We announce elsewhere in this issue the adoption by another large state of the research plan of law examination. The proposal of adding to the bar examination as given in the past a test in legal research or the use of law books has been discussed thoroughly in these columns through many previous issues, but at this time we should like to call attention to a part of the official report on the Ohio research test in December, written by Col. Willis Bacon, then chairman of the Ohio Board of Bar Examiners, and published in The Law Student for February 15th. After pointing out how easy it was to examine a large class of applicants by giving groups of fifty at a time one hour of research work, and after announcing the results achieved by the applicants at this particular examination, Col. Bacon went on to point out the value of such a test in connection with the bar examination, not only as respects the public, but also as respects the applicant for admission to the bar. Col. Bacon wrote in part: "It ought to require no argument with the practicing lawyer and with courts, that if the great body of applicants that come before the board for admission to the bar in the State of Ohio could be made to study law and to know how to study law and to know how to find the law, it would be much better for both the profession and the public than if such appplicants relied mainly upon memory for their ability to serve the public. "These examinations, in the five years that the undersigned has been upon the board, were difficult when the first one was participated in, and they have been growing harder ever since. The attempt has been, of course, to bar out the inefficient by making the examinations hard. The belief has been that the harder the examination, the harder the student must study to pass the examination. "There can be no argument against the fact that the lawyer best educated in funda dersigned, Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Notre Dame, Columbia and Chicago University law Reserve and Cincinnati graduates have ignominiously flunked. The fact that a great many of the questions asked apply to Ohio law has, of course, aided in that failure of school students, and even Ohio State Western the outside law school students. "It is really a tragedy when an honor student from a law school that is thorough in the teaching of fundamentals and high in its teaching in ethics fails in our examinations, when some energetic 'memory shark' can pass with a high grade. And there is also something basically wrong with our kind of examinations when that becomes a frequent occurrence, and it has. "The quiz schools of Ohio supply, of course, what the well grounded students from the big law schools lack. Though far from being a believer in the systems of the quiz schools, the undersigned has frequently advised students from the foreign schools referred to, to go to Cincinnati or Cleveland and take such course prescribed there in the quiz schools before attempting the Ohio examination. "A system of examinations which requires one who is well grounded in the principles of law, to take a superficial course for the mere principle defective. Our examinations should purpose of passing the examination, is in require more merit in some other line of ability than mere memory. "Most of the examiners with some or all of their questions, ask of an applicant to give reasons. This helps some, but the quiz school student who depends upon his memory will cite you to case, title and page as the reason. After all, he has given you the best reason though he has not used any reasoning power whatsoever to arrive at it. And an examiner must mark him perfect for such reason. "A research test, according to the notion I of the undersigned, gets entirely away from the memory faculty. At one time, about 30 years ago, I heard a lecture given to the bar association of Ohio at Put-in-Bay Island. have forgotten the speaker's name, but he was some eastern lawyer. The message that he was trying to convey to the lawyer was that the ability of the lawyer, after he got the fundamentals of the law, was measured by his ability to find the law, and the speaker, with that crowd, put his message over. "In the last seven years, the undersigned has been instrumental in employing for this firm, 16 new men who had just passed their law examinations. The nature of the business (a commercial law business), in which these men were employed required that the Two work must be done reasonably cheaply. only of the 16 were able to find the law and to brief issues of law presented to them. Both are now members of the firm. The other ones have gone their ways or are employed in some very minor capacity, such as collecting or trying the 'sure thing' Municipal Court SHELTER signed meets in the court room is one of two classes. He is the young fellow who doesn't know how to find the law, or the lawyer who has gotten to the state where he thinks he doesn't need to study the law. Both are pitiable looking objects in the court room and both are taking money that they do not earn. "There was an old lawyer at Barberton, Ohio, many years ago. He is dead now. When he was about 40 years old, the practice was so unremunerating that the constable there levied on his library and sold it for debt. The old lawyer proceeded to practice on without his library. Years afterwards a law book agent, who was not aware how hard up the old lawyer was, happened into his office and tried to sell him some books. 'Hell! man,' he said, 'I am practicing law, not studying it.' "In the Cities of Cleveland and Akron, I want to bear testimony that far too many lawyers are attempting to practice law without studying it. "It is believed that the failure of practically all of the persons who took this research test is traceable directly to the fact that it was not required heretofore in the examinations in Ohio, and the applicants therefore did not think it worth while to prepare, and the faculties of the schools thought the same. The undersigned positively knows that the success of a large number who showed ability in research work in this examination was due to the fact that it was known in the law schools and to all applicants that the test was going to be required in this particular examination. "Quite obviously the three and four years of study required in law before taking the examination was expended with those studies upon which the applicant expected to be examined. It was so with the undersigned when he passed the law examination 36 years ago. It is apparent in other branches of the law upon which examinations are not required. "For instance, sooner or later the young courts. There is no examination in Bankruptcy Law in the Ohio Examination; yet 40% of the law business in northeastern Ohio is insolvency business, with a very large percentage of it bankruptcy. It would be funny if it was not so embarrassing and so tragic lawyer will have to practice in the bankruptcy CHING FINAL EXAMS to watch a young lawyer in his first bank ruptcy case where there is any contest. A lawyer versed in insolvency law should be 'ashamed to take the money' for fighting a battle against one of these in the bankruptcy court. "A question in evidence propounded by the undersigned in a bar examination a couple of years ago was a very simple one, 'How do you prove a claim in the bankruptcy court?' Less than 10% of the class answered the question correctly. Fully 15%, as I now remember it, explained that they had had no education in bankruptcy law. 90% might truthfully have made that excuse. "The above is recited here as an argument not only for the permanent adoption of the research test as a part of our examination in Ohio, but also to urge that an examination be required in the fundamentals of all the im portant branches of the law that the practitioner may be required to enter into, in a general law practice, and by that means force the law schools to seriously teach them and also so necessary a thing as ability to find the law. "Otherwise, if he ever becomes a really good lawyer, he will do it only at the ex pense of the poor innocents who present themselves to him in the belief that the statement on the shingle in front of his office means something. "It is lucky that the medical profession has more conscience about the qualifications of the new members of its profession. If it hadn't, the human race would soon become extinct." These remarks, by one who has been in the active practice of law for years, and is a leader of the bar in a great state, should be engraved on the memory of every law student, and we submit that they should be carefully considered by those responsible for the conduct of law schools and for the examination of applicants for admission to the bar. Character Of late there has been much discussion and agitation of the question of character in the law student and the applicant for admission to the bar-discussion both of character in the abstract and of the necessity that some practical means be devised for eliminating the morally unfit from the ranks of those admitted to the practice of law. The fact of discussion and agitation in itself is a healthy symptom of an awakening in this respect. Too often moral undesirables have been admitted on the passing of a mere mental examination alone, without scrutiny of their characters; in fact men with actual criminal records have not infrequently been licensed to practice law. In many of the states committees on character or committees on character and fitness have been created and are now functioning. Such committees serve and will serve a most useful purpose in eliminating applicants of a definitely undesirable standard who have stolen or committed crimes of violence. But if the profession is not to be contaminated at its source something more is necessary than the elimination of those who have ac crime. men '26 54 10 18 '26 71 27 61 201 76 37 18 16 2 11 Vt. 58 These collateral review The law schools seek to leaflets were not published produce legal minds rather to afford law students ille- than legal phonographs. It gitimate aid in studying has been demonstrated by under the case method-in experience that the systefact it is impossible so to matic study of cases, under use them. They do not proper guidance and with contain a line of text, but the advantage of expert consist wholly of references critical comment and disfrom the cases in each case- cussion, is the best available book treated to the place in method to develop the legal Corpus Juris-Cyc where mind and powers of legal the principle of each case is reasoning. fully developed by means of a concise and luminous text, stating not only the general rule, but also all its exceptions, limitations and qualifications, and citing all supporting cases, from all jurisdictions. The Company's announcement of these leaflets stressed three points: First, that they make possible a systematic review and rereview of law school work; second, that they enable the student to learn just how the courts of the particular state jurisdiction in which he intends to take his bar examination have held on each fundamental principle and its many applications impossible to treat in a casebook; and, third, that their use throughout the law school course will give any student a valuable training in legal research. On the other hand, granting that the student must acquire a legal mind and the ability to reason from legal principles if he is to be equipped to serve his clients after his admission to the bar, nevertheless it must not be forgotten that each student must pass a bar examination before he is admitted to practice. And the bar examination of today, as it is given, tests of course to some extent each applicant's powers of reasoning, but necessarily tests much more severely his powers of memory and recall. If he has not acquired a firm grasp of the fundamental principles of the common law, their more important special applications, and their modern developments, he will very often fail. It is to insure against tually been convicted of ing men in their offices, school work faithfully, and let him supplement it with adequate collateral reading under the guidance of these review leaflets, and he may to the facts. If the whole approach his bar examinaaim of legal education were tion with confidence, not merely to instill a knowl- only that he will pass it and edge of principles, a shorter be admitted to the honormeans could be taken than able and learned profession the study of cases, as select- of the law, but also that ed and republished in case- after his admission he will books, but the primary aim be thoroughly equipped to of modern legal education is meet the keenest profesnot the acquisition by the sional competition on his student of a mere knowl- own merits and from his edge of principles in vaccuo. own resources. |