Note iv-30 — Chapter IV · DOLLARS AND CENTS

That baffling question as to how the value of a lawyer’s services should be arrived at was thus stated in Lincoln’s trial brief: “Are or not the amount of labor, the doubtfulness and difficulty of the question, the degree of success in the result, and the amount of pecuniary interest involved, not merely in the particular case, but covered by the principle decided, and thereby secured to the client, all proper elements, by the custom of the profession to consider in determining what is a reasonable fee in a given case?”

For an answer that may serve, in part, at least, the reader is referred to an opinion, which had been delivered some years previously by Chief Justice John B. Gibson, of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Discussing the fees earned by an attorney in important litigation, he said: “It is not to be doubted that responsibility, in a confidential employment, is a legitimate subject of compensation, and in proportion to the magnitude of the interests committed to the agents.... A lawyer charged with particular preparations for a lawsuit, is not to be made responsible, or paid, as a porter or a shoemaker.” (Pennsylvania Reports, vii, 545-46.)