Seventh District, Eighth District, Ninth District, First District, Second District, Third District, Fourth District, Fifth District, Sixth District, Seventh District, Eighth District, Ninth District, Charles T. Ennis, Lyons. John J. McInerney, Rochester. John S. Rockwell, Rochester. Norman D. Fish, North Tonawanda. Frederick Barnard, Poughkeepsie. F. B. Van Kleeck, Jr., White Plains. COMMITTEE ON GRIEVANCES Henry W. Jessup, New York. William F. Hagarty, Brooklyn. Harry H. Flemming, Kingston. Charles N. Bulger, Oswego. Joseph D. Senn, Oneida. Warren J. Cheney, Corning. George G. Davidson, Jr., Buffalo. Peter Cantline, Newburgh. John E. Mack, Poughkeepsie. J. Sheldon Frost, Albany. Ledyard P. Hale, Canton. Virgil K. Kellogg, Watertown. George Hopkins Bond, Syracuse. James P. Hill, Norwich. Ernest C. Whitbeck, Rochester. Clinton B. Gibbs, Buffalo. Samuel H. Brown, Poughkeepsie. Elbert N. Oakes, Middletown. Jerome Alvord Peck, Port Chester. COMMITTEE ON LEGAL BIOGRAPHY James DeWitt Andrews, New York. Thomas Hun, Albany. Lawrence B. McKelvey, Saratoga Springs. John F. Ringwood, Poughkeepsie. Respectfully submitted, DELANCEY NICOLL, Chairman, CHARLES J. MCDERMOTT, H. LEROY AUSTIN, C. C. VAN KIRK, J. HENRY WAlters, E. C. AIKEN, A. H. F. SEEGER. Dated, New York, December 22, 1917. The President: The next is the report of the Committee on Judicial Statistics. The Secretary : This Committee is unable to make any report, except progress, this year. I regret to say that Mr. J. Noble Hayes, the Chairman of the Committee, is ill and therefore cannot attend the meeting. The Committee made considerable progress last year before the Legislature and they hope to be successful this year in passing the legislation. which the Committee recommended. I therefore move that the Committee be continued.. The motion was duly seconded and carried. The President: The next is the report of the Committee on Legal Ethics. Henry W. Jessup, of New York: Mr. President and gentlemen, this report was sent to the printer while Mr. Wadhams and myself were in Philadelphia at the conference of the Committees on Ethics and on Grievances of the American Bar Association, with the result that there are some infelicities in it, due to lack of proof reading on my part. Some changes will be made in the corrected copy as printed in the annual year book: I do not propose to read the report at length. It is here for distribution, and should be studied. The report does not close with any recommendation this year. Some of the members thought that we should recommend that the Committee be continued. We felt that that was for the Association to determine. There was a conference held this last year, at the invitation of the Committee on Ethics of the American Bar Association, which invited this Committee and the Committee of the New York County Lawyers' Association to confer upon some method for making the work of these Committees more effective. If you will examine the resolution creating this Committee in this Association, or the resolution creating the Committee on Ethics of the American Bar Association, you will see that no powers are conferred upon the Committee, and yet the chairmen of these two Committees are constantly receiving from this country and Canada and England, inquiries or complaints with regard to professional conduct, and they are powerless to deal with those inquiries. Therefore, it has been the practice of the chairman for the last few years, when inquiries or complaints have been made with respect to the propriety of given conduct, or some canon of which that conduct was thought to be violative, to the fact that there does exist a Committee with ample powers, and which has been exercising those powers for a number of years, applying the canons of the American Bar Association to given cases of professional conduct. That is the Committee of the New York County Lawyers' Association on Professional Ethics. The deliverances of that Committee are given publicity through a number of publications all over the United States, and they have even reached into the Asiatic continent, and letters of commendation have been received from lawyers in Japan, and the English Settlements, commenting upon the spirit that animates and dominates the deliverances of that Committee. So, we called that conference together for the primary purpose of discussing the question whether or not we should refer all inquiries, by authority of this Association, to that Committee, which had built up for itself a reputation of reasonableness in the interpretation of the canons. Objection was promptly raised on the part of this very Committee that we would be abdicating the functions of the New York State Bar Association if we consented to such a practice. The answer was that we have no functions to abdicate. We are not scavengers exactly, but we are collectors of information for the delectation or instruction or amusement of this Association. For example, I received a circular a short time ago under a heading that advertises a farce in three acts entitled, "What is Your Husband Doing," and alluding to the fact that the star of this play has taken the opportunity, “in a perfectly harmless way" of using the names of various well-known lawyers, "which he gets from the Bar Association and other Associations, changing them at different performances." I received an inquiry asking whether "this innocent form of advertising was in any degree offensive," etc. I promptly indicated that for reasons which might be controlling only upon myself, by virtue of my position, I did object to this innocent form of advertising, and stated that I would gladly supply the postage for a list of those attorneys who would signify their desire to be advertised in this harmless way, but I have received no reply. - Again, I received a complaint from the Secretary of the Canadian Bar Association enclosing a very handsomely gotten up personal letter from I will not identify the publication, a directory of lawyers, stating that they had facilities by means of which those who subscribed to this interesting publication would be members of a chain of firms who would mutually treat with one another to the exclusion of others, the various links of this chain being guaranteed by this responsible directory, and saying that in this way the members would acquire an enlargement of their business, being recommended to correspondents in different parts of the country. They referred to one or more of the most |