Note ii-16 — Chapter II · TRUTH IN LAW

Lincoln’s refusal to take what he considered a bad case is in harmony, as far as civil actions go, with the practice of every high-minded lawyer. David Hoffman, of the Baltimore bar, drawing up, early in the nineteenth century, a code of ethics for the guidance of his students throughout their professional careers, prescribed as the eleventh of fifty resolutions: “If, after duly examining a case, I am persuaded that my client’s claim or defense (as the case may be) cannot, or rather ought not to be sustained, I will promptly advise him to abandon it. To press it further in such a case, with the hope of gleaning some advantage by an extorted compromise, would be lending myself to a dishonorable use of legal means in order to gain a portion of that, the whole of which I have reason to believe would be denied to him both by law and justice.”