Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/19

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INTRODUCTORY

many verdicts on appeal. He will not only complete his trial in shorter time, but he will be likely to bring about an equitable verdict in the case which may not be appealed from at all, or, if appealed, will be sustained by a higher court, instead of being sent back for a retrial and the consequent consumption of the time of another judge and jury in doing the work all over again.[1]

These facts are being more and more appreciated each year, and in our local courts there is already an ever increasing coterie of trial lawyers, who are devoting the principal part of their time to court practice.

A few lawyers have gone so far as to refuse direct communication with clients excepting as they come represented by their own attorneys. It is pleasing to note that some of our leading advocates who, having been called away from large and active law practice to enter the government service, have expressed their intention, when they resume the practice of the law, to refuse all cases where clients are not already represented by competent attorneys, recognizing, at least in their own practice, the English distinction between the barrister and solicitor. We are thus beginning to appreciate in this country what the English courts have so long recognized: that the only way to insure speedy and intelligently conducted litigations is to inaugurate a custom

  1. In the Borough of Manhattan at the present time thirty-three per cent of the cases tried are appealed, and forty-two per cent of the cases appealed are reversed and sent back for re-trial as shown by the court statistics.

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