week, or a month of the lawyer's entire time, or only an hour a day, or a few minutes a day for an extended period?

Obviously the lawyer cannot trust his memory to recall all the details of his employment upon a given case. The proper method of keeping a record of time is to write down in his "Lawyer's Diary," or indorse on the case itself, the date on which a certain service was rendered and the charge therefor. When the total of charges is found, the lawyer has a basis from which to determine his fee.

The nature of the labor performed is also an element to be considered. Obviously the intense mental application necessary in research work is worth more than the same amount of time spent in less arduous employment.

A lawyer's time becomes more valuable as the lawyer grows more experienced and efficient. An eminent lawyer may charge one hundred dollars a day with more justice than he could have charged fifteen dollars a day at the beginning of his legal career. His time cannot be measured by standards of day labor. The years of study and preparation necessary to qualify him for practice entitle him to larger rewards for professional services. The public often overlook this fact.

An amusing instance of a lawyer's charges

versus those of a sign painter came to the writer's attention not long ago. The sign painter had fallen into legal difficulties and had consulted a lawyer. He was given the necessary advice and promptly charged five dollars. The sign painter expostulated and paid the bill only when the lawyer called his attention to the fact that it was not necessarily the time spent in the consultation itself that rendered the charge just, but the years of study and preparation that had been necessary to qualify the lawyer to give the advice called for. The sign painter was obviously impressed by the explanation.

Shortly afterward the lawyer removed his office to a more modern location and bethought him of his late client, the sign painter. He requested the painter to letter the glass of his office door. Now in the sign-painting fraternity there is a fixed schedule of so much per letter, and according to this schedule the bill for the lettering should have been something less than two dollars. The painter, however, presented a bill for five dollars and, when taken to task for such excessive charges, averred that it was not so much the lettering itself that made his charge just, but the long apprenticeship and experience that made it possible for him to do it so nicely.

The lawyer gravely pointed out to the sign painter that the lawyer was obliged to sacrifice

many years of his youth and pay out large sums of money to obtain his education in order to qualify for the profession, whereas the sign painter had sacrificed nothing to obtain his skill; he had earned money from the beginning and his skill after all was more of the fingers than of the brain. The sign painter reduced the bill to a proper figure. Having vindicated the principle, the lawyer paid the bill and made the painter a present of the balance of the five dollars.

§ 114. NOVELTY OF THE QUESTION INVOLVED. If the question involved in a case is one that has frequently been adjudicated by the courts and the principles of law governing it are perfectly well defined, every reasonably well-informed lawyer should be able to handle the case without any special amount of research. Hence, no special charges need be made for research work. But if the question presented is a novel one, the amount of work necessary to search out law on the point may be considerable.

It may be that there is no law covering the point in one's own jurisdiction, nor in any neighboring jurisdiction, and the lawyer is obliged to resort to his inventive faculties to establish a plausible analogy between existing law on some other point and the ruling sought on the point in question. Obviously, such services on the part

of the attorney merit a larger reward than in the ordinary case. The mental effort of creative work as compared with applying ready-made principles places the former on an altogether different basis. In the same ratio as the mental effort of creative work is greater than the other, compensation therefor should be greater. Novelty of a question involved in a case is, therefore, a legitimate consideration in the fixing of a lawyer's fee.

§ 115. WHETHER TAKING CASE WILL DEPRIVE LAWYER OF OTHER BUSINESS.

A is a member of a partnership which has fallen into financial difficulties through the absconding of the other partner with a large portion of the assets. He consults B, a prominent lawyer, with a request to defend him against suits that he fears may be brought against his personal estate by creditors of the partnership. It is reasonably certain that many of the creditors may wish to employ B in their controversy with A, so that if he were to engage himself with A he could not act for them and would thus lose a considerable volume of business. It is just, therefore, that A should be required to pay a larger fee for the services of the lawyer in order to compensate him for his probable losses.

The same right of additional compensation

would accrue if the lawyer were engaged on an unpopular side and his activities therein would tend to create antagonisms or hatred on the part of those who might otherwise become clients.

116. CUSTOMARY CHARGES OF THE PROFESSION. The customary charges of the bar for similar services has great bearing upon the question of the amount of a lawyer's fee. But the great difficulty is to ascertain what these customary charges may be. Lawyers differ greatly in their standards of charge and the same lawyer, even, varies from year to year, but always in an ascending variation. The difficulties in the way of establishing uniform schedules of charges have already been pointed out in section 112.

The writer has recently endeavored by a series of investigations among lawyers to obtain some statistics on the question of legal fees. Combining these with his own experience as a lawyer, the following rather indefinite figures result.

MINIMUM FEE

Practically all law offices have in theory a minimum fee, below which they will not go. For all small services, except notarial work, for which the fees are set by statute, the minimum fee is in some offices three dollars; in others, five dollars, and so on.