The examination of clerks, previous to admission as attorneys and solicitors, takes place at the Institution belonging to the Incorporated Law Society in Chancery Lane, in each term. Printed questions to the number of eighty or ninety are previously prepared. Four of these are preliminary, the third and fourth requiring a statement as to what law-books the clerk has read and studied, and what law-lectures he has attended. The other questions are arranged under the following heads : 1. Common and Statute Law and Practice of the Courts. 2. Conveyancing. 3. Equity and Practice of the Courts. 4. Bankruptcy and Practice of the Courts. 5. Criminal Law and Proceedings before Justices of the Peace.
2. The duties, functions, primers, and disabilities of attorneys.—The prin cipal duties of an attorney are care, skill, and integrity ; and if he be not deficient in these essential requisites, he is no• responsible for mere error or mistake in the exercise of his profession. But if he be deficient of proper skill or care, and a loss thereby arises to his client, he is liable to a special action on the case ; as, if the attorney neglect on the trial to procure the attendance of a material witness ; or if he neglect attending an arbitrator to whom his client's cause is referred ; or if he omit to charge a de fendant in custody at the suit of his client, in execution within the proper time. When an attorney has once un dertaken a cause, he cannot withdraw from it at his pleasure ; and though he is not bound to proceed if his client neglect to supply him with money to meet the necessary disbursements, yet before an attorney can abandon the cause on the ground of want of funds, he must give a sufficient and reasonable notice to the client of his intention. When deeds or writings come to an attorney's hands in the way of his business as an attorney, the court, on motion, will make a rule upon him to deliver them back to the party on payment of what is due to him on account of professional services and disbursements, and particularly when he has given an undertaking to re-deliver them; but, unless they come to his hands strictly in his business as an attorney, the court will not make a rule, but leave the party to bring his action against the attorney.
An attorney duly enrolled and certi ficated is considered to be always per sonally present in court, and on that account has still some privileges, though they are now much narrowed. Till lately he was entitled to sue by a peculiar pro cess, called an attachment of privilege, and to be sued in his own court by bill ; but the late act for uniformity of process, 2 Will. IV. c. 39, has abolished these distinctions, and an attorney now sues and is sued like other persons. By reason of the supposed necessity for his presence in court, an attorney is exempt from offices requiring personal service, as those of sheriff, constable, overseer of the poor, and also from serving as a juror. These privileges, being allowed not so much for the benefit of attorneys as of their clients, are confined to attorneys who practise, or at least have practised within a year.
An attorney is also subjected to some disabilities and restrictions. No attorney
practising in the King's Courts could for merly be under-sheritr, sheriff's clerk, re. eeiver, or sheriff's bailiff; but that part of the act (1 Hen. V. c. 4) which related to under-sheriffs is repealed by 6 & Vict. By rule of Michaelmas Term, 1654, no attorney can be a lessee in eject ment, or bail for a defendant in any action. By 5 Geo. H. c. 18, § 2, no attorney can be a justice of the peace while in practise as an attorney; and this clause is not repealed by 6 & 7 Vict., but there is an exception in favour of justices in any city or town being a county of itself, or to any city, town, einque port, &c. having justices within their respective limits. No practising attorney can be a Commissioner of the Land Tax without possessing 1001. per annum. By 12 Geo. H. c. 13, which is repealed by 6 & 7 Vict., no attorney who was a prisoner in any prison, or within the rules or liberties thereof, could sue out any process, or commence or prosecute any suit, under penalty of being struck off the roll, and incapacitated from acting as an attorney for the future ; and the punishment was the same for any attorney who suffered an attorney in pri son to prosecute a suit in his name ; but an attorney in prison might carry on suits commenced before his confinement; and the statute did not prohibit his defending, but only prosecuting suits.
3. The consequences of an attorney's misbehaviour.—The court which has ad mitted an attorney to practise treats him as one of its officers, and exercises a summary jurisdiction over him, either for the benefit of his clients or for his own punishment in case of misconduct. If he is charged on affidavit with fraud or mal practice, contrary to justice and common honesty, the court will call upon him to answer the matters of the affidavit; and if he do not distinctly deny the charges imputed to him. or if he swear to an in credible story in disproof of them, the court will grant an attachment. If the misconduct of the attorney amount to an indictable offence, the courts will in ge neral leave him to be indicted by the party complaining, and wil, not call upon him to answer the matters of an affidavit. If the attorney has been fraudulently ad mitted, or has been convicted of felony, or any other offence which renders him unfit to practise, or if he has knowingly suffered his name to be used by a person unqualified to practise, or if he has him self acted as agent for such a person, or if he has signed a fictitious name to a demurrer purporting to be the signature of a barrister, or otherwise grossly mis behaved himself, the court will order him to be struck off the roll of attorneys. But striking off the roll is not a perpe tual disability: for in some instances the court will permit him to be restored, con sidering the punishment in the light of a suspension only. An attorney may procure his name to be struck off the roll, on his own application ; which is done when an attorney intends to be called to the bar. But it is necessary for him to accompany his application with an affidavit to the effect that he does not make the application in order to prevent any other person making it against him.