Denver Law Review Denver Law Review
Volume 6 Issue 7 Article 3
January 1929
Recruiting the Profession Recruiting the Profession
Roger H. Wolcott
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Roger H. Wolcott, Recruiting the Profession, 6 Dicta 3 (1929).
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DICTA
Vol.
VI
MAY,
1929
No.
7
RECRUITING
THE
PROFESSION
By
Roger
H.
Wolcott
of the
Denver
Bar
(Dean
of
the
Law
School
of
the
University
of
Denver)
LEGAL
directory
lists
1625
attorneys
in
Colorado,
1050
of
them
in
Denver,
and
575
elsewhere
in
the
state.
The
list
includes
judges,
and
includes
some
persons
who
are
giving
their
main
attention
to
enterprises
other
than
practice,
but
even
after
such
deductions,
the
showing
is
im-
pressive.
The
length
of
the
roll
is
due
to
past
rules
of
admis-
sion
and
not
to
present
rules.
After
allowing
for
deaths
and
withdrawals
annually,
the
list
is
probably
increasing
each
year
by
thirty
or
forty
names,
as
sixty-three
new
attorneys
were
enrolled
after
the
two
1928
bar
examinations,
for
in-
stance,
the
majority
of
whom
will
remain
in
the
state,
and
there
are
also
several
attorneys
each
year
who
move
to
Colo-
rado
from
other
states
and
are
admitted
without
examination.
These
figures
are
for
our
own
state
only,
where
the
num-
ber
of
law
students
and
candidates
for
the
bar
now
remains
fairly
constant,
the
number
in
local
law
schools
being
no
greater
today
than
it
was
five
years
ago.
In
the
nation
at
large
also,
the
profession
is
growing,
but
judging
by
the
in-
crease
in
law
students,
the
growth
in
the nation
is
at
an
ac-
celerating
rate
and
has
not
kept
down
the
way
it
has
begun
to
in
Colorado.
Mr.
Alfred
Z.
Reed,
of the
Carnegie
Foun-
dation
for
the
Advancement
of
Teaching,
states
that
there
were
24,503
students
in
American
Law
Schools
in
1919-1920
and
44,340
in
1925-1926,
an
increase
of
over
80
per
centum
in
six
years.
His
estimate
for
the
fall
of
1927
is
46,786.
In
New
York City,
Dean
Young
B.
Smith
of
Columbia
Law
School
points
out
that
the
half
dozen
larger
law
schools
there
had
a
combined
enrollment
of
2,705
in
1916,
which
increased
to
6,225
in
1923,
and
to
more
than
10,000
in
1928.
DICTA
If
no
new
attorneys
had
been
admitted
to
practice
in
the
United
States
during
the
past
year
or
two,
it
is
probable that
the
attorneys
already
in
practice could
have
met the
public's
legal
needs,
which
means
that
the
profession
is
in
a
position
to
experiment,
if
it
wishes,
with
the
raising
of
standards
for
admission
to its
ranks, and the
experimenting
is
taking
place.
This
is
something
which
the
lawyers have
been
slow
to
do.
The
profession
has
been
on
a
high
plane,
and
in
spite
of
occasional
accusations
of
exclusion,
no
profession
has
been
less
mercenary
or
less
inclined
to
raise
requirements
for
admis-
sion
from
monopolistic
motives.
In
North
Carolina,
for
in-
stance,
the Committee
on
Legal
Education,
under
the
direc-
tion
of
Mr.
Alexander
B.
Andrews,
made
a
study
and
tabula-
tion
last
year,
and
found
incidentally
that
in
that
state
a
per-
son
who
had
finished
grammar
school
could
become
a
lawyer
with
one-third
the
further
period
of
study
which
he
would
have
to
have
if
he
should
aspire
to
become
a
chiropodist,
optometrist,
or elementary
school
teacher.
To
become
a
den-
tist
he
would
need
four
and
a
half
times the
course
required
of
candidates
for
the
bar,
and the
future
doctors
must
take
a
course
nearly
six
times
as
lengthy
as
the
future
lawyers.
Trained
nurses
in
North
Carolina
are
rather
low
in
the
scale,
and are
required
to
have
only
twice
the amount
of
higher
edu-
cation
demanded
of
lawyers
but
the
committee
states
that
most
of
the hospitals
there
refuse
to
accept
nurses
who
have
had
no
more than
such
minimum
education.
There
are
nine
states
which require
less
from
law
candidates
than
North
Carolina
requires,
and
six
states
besides
which
require
less
from
their
lawyers than
the one-year
of
high
school
and
three
years
of
professional study
required
of
North
Carolina
trained
nurses.
Suggestions
for
limiting
bar
admissions,
or
of
raising
standards
of
education,
have
begun
to
come
from
the outside.
President
Robert
Appleton,
of
the Association
of
Grand
Jurors
of
New
York
County,
speaks
favorably
of
the
sug-
gestion
for
conditional
admission
to
the
bar, withholding
life-time
admission
until
after
a
period
of
probation
and
ob-
servation.
Mr.
Alfred
Z.
Reed, who,
although
a
leading
authority
on
legal
education,
is
not
a
lawyer,
points
out
that
the
law
is
a
public
profession,
requiring
a
high
standard
of
DICTA
character
and
ability,
and
that
the
public
is
directly
interested
in
the
profession's
personnel
and
training.
His
own
special
interest
is
in
legal
education,
which
he
has
greatly
furthered
by
his
writings
and
reports.
This
article
is
not
intended
to
urge
restriction
of
num-
bers,
nor
increase
of
numbers
in
the
profession,
but
merely
to
report
on
what
is
going
on.
Within
the
legal
profession
there
has
been
great
breadth
and
tolerance
on
the
subject
of
bar
admissions
and
preparation,
aside
from
the
desire
of
members
to
avoid
accusations
of
selfishness.
Those
within
the
profession
who
have
given
thought
to
the
matter
have
been
inclined
to
assume
that
some
other
organization
than
their
own
was
considering
the
problem.
The
American
Bar
Association
has
realized
that
admission
to
practice
is
a
matter
for
each
state
to
settle
for
itself.
Many
of
the
state
bar
associations
are
only
moderately
active
and
they
do
not
uni-
versally
have
Committees
on
Legal
Education
with
a
bent
for
research.
Some
of
the most
active
and
well
organized
bar
associations
have
been
those
of
counties
and
cities,
whose
primary
attention
has
been
given
to
questions
of
less
than
statewide
import.
The
lawyers
have
perhaps
taken
it
for
granted
that
the law
schools
are
organized
on
this
subject
and
are
working
to
secure
higher
requirements
for
admission
to
practice
in
the
several
states,
both
of
which
the
law
schools
generally
are
not.
In
Massachusetts,
for
instance,
a
candidate
for
the
bar
need
have
only
two
years
of
night
high
school,
or
its
equivalent,
by
way
of
pre-legal
education,
while
the
com-
monwealth's
oldest
law
school,
Harvard,
has
for
thirty
years
been
requiring
college
graduation
as
the
pre-legal
minimum
for
entrance.
The
state
and
the
school
have
gone
their
re-
spective
ways
and
there
is
no
indicatiod
that
either
of
these
two
institutions
has
any
inclination
to
try
to
convert
the
other,
or that
it would
be
desirable.
The
question
of
enlarging
or
contracting
the
list
of
lawyers
is
for
the
lawyers.
The
American
Bar
Association
manifested
an
interest
as
early
as
1890
when
its
membership
was
1000
as
compared
with
the
present
26,595.
Its
Section
on
Legal
Education
was
created
in
1893,
and
in
1897
the
Association
endorsed
high
school
graduation
and
a
three
year
course
of
law study
as
requirements
for
admission
to
the
bar.
This
position
was
DICTA
again
affirmed
in
1908
and
1918.
In
1921
the
Association
recommended
two
years
of
study
in
college,
followed
by
a
three
year
period
of
law
study,
as
a
requisite
for
admission
to
practice,
and has
for
several
years
given
wide
publicity
to
the recommendation.
It
has
met
generally with approval
or
indifference
rather
than
with
any
active
opposition.
This
1921
requirement
is
now
effective
in
122
per
cent.
of
the
states,
and the
same
requirement,
or
something
beyond,
is
in
force
in
42
per
cent.
of
the
law
schools
as
the
requirement
for
graduation.
The
law
schools
have
been
more
responsive
than
the
states.
For
the law
schools
observing
these
standards
and
certain
further
standards,
there
is
the
Association
of
Ameri-
can
Law
Schools,
which
by
the
reward
of
membership
has
furnished
a
further
incentive
to
law
schools
for self-improve-
ment,
and
has
caused
them
to
be
less
inclined
to
stand
still
than
the
states
have
been.
The
American
Bar
Association's
Council
on
Legal
Edu-
cation
now
has
regulations
which
make
its
standards
the
same
as
those of
the
Association
of
American
Law
Schools,
and the
Council
publishes
from
time
to
time the
names
of
law
schools
which
comply
with
its
standards.
The
Council
is
directed
by
the
American
Bar
Association
"to
make
such
publications
available
so
far
as
possible
to
intending
law
students".
Sixty-five
of
the
country's
175
law
schools
are
on
the
Council's
approved
list
and
of these
same
65
law
schools,
62
are
members
of
the
Association
of
American
Law
Schools.
The
Council's
persuasion
and
the influence
of
the
Asso-
ciation
of
American Law
Schools
is
upon
the
schools
rather
than
upon
the
states,
and
it
has been
here
shown
that
in
per-
centage
of
compliance
with
recommended
standards
the
schools
have
risen
above
the
level
of
the
states.
In
the
direc-
tion'of
supplying
the
bar
of
the
future
with fewer
and
better
lawyers,
about all
has
been
accomplished
for the
present
that
can
be
accomplished
by
working
on
the
schools.
Of
the
110
schools
which
are not
yet
approved
by
the
Council
on
Legal
Education,
two
or
three
a
year
in
the
next few
years
may
succeed
in
meeting
the
standards,
but
many
of
them cannot
do
it until
the
states
in
which
they
are located
raise
the
standards
for
admission
to
practice.
Harvard
and
Columbia,
with
their
high
standards,
have
been
able
to
flourish
in
states
DICTA
which
have
in
the
past
had
low
bar
admission
requirements,
because
Harvard
and
Columbia
are
financially
independent,
and
a
majority
of
the
law
schools
of state
universities
have
been
able
to
also,
for
a
like
reason.
It
is
to
be
noted,
how-
ever,
that
only
one-eleventh
of
New
York
City's
law
students
are
at
Columbia,
Columbia
being
the
city's
sixth
school
in
size,
and
that
Harvard
Law
School
has
two
neighbors
that
are
both
larger
in
enrollment
than
she
is,
so
that
the
bar's
benefit
from
receiving
Harvard
and
Columbia trained
mem-
bers
is
diluted
by
the
influx
from
other
sources.
The
principle
may
be
elaborated
upon
by
an
illustration
from
a
neutral
point
like
Arizona.
In
Arizona
the
state's
only law
school
requires
two
years
of
college
for
admission,
while
for
admission
to
the
bar
of
Arizona,
one
need
appar-
ently
have
no
more
than
a
grade
school
education,
or per-
haps
even
less.
If
the
state
had
a
large
population
and
several
metropolitan
centers
with
law
schools
in
them
requiring
only
grade
school
education
for
admission,
there
would
be
a
six-
year
differential
against
the
state's
standard
law
school
and
in
favor
of
the
schools
founded
on
the
strength
of
lenient
bar
admission
requirements.
The
heavier
enrollment
would
be
in
the
short-cut
schools
and
the
additions
to
the
bar
of
the
state
would
be
more
from
that
type
of
school
than from
the
school
requiring
the
six
years
of
pre-legal
training.
This
is
what
has
happened
in
some
of
the
more
thickly
populated
states,
and
is
why
many
of
the
110
unapproved
law
schools
cannot
raise
entrance
requirements
and
other
standards
until
their
states
raise
bar
admission
requirements.
New
York,
by
the
way,
has
now
raised
its
requirements
for
the
bar
to
two
years
of
college
plus
three
years
of
law
school,
effective
October
15,
1929.
At
present
therefore,
the
situation
is
that
over
one-third
of
the
country's
law
schools
are
observing
American
Bar
Asso-
ciation
standards,
some
of
them
being
influenced
and
aided
to
do
so
by
the
rules
of
the
Council
and
the Schools
Associa-
tion.
The
number
of
approved
schools
is
slowly
increasing
and the
proportion
may
reach
one-half
of the
total
number
of
American
schools
within
the
next
few
years,
but
meanwhile,
from two-thirds
to
one-half
of
the
admissions
to
the
bar
will
be
from
the
schools
not
so
approved,
and
some
of
the
schools
DICTA
not
approved
are
not
susceptible
to
the
influence
of
either
the
Council
or
the
Association,
and
will
remain
unapproved.
The
situation
will
stay
fairly
stationary
until
the
states
whose
re-
quirements
for
admission
to
practice
are
below
those
recom-
mended
by
the
American
Bar
Association raise
the
standards
gradually
to
those
of
the
American
Bar
Association,
thereby
gradually
decreasing
the
present
differential
in
favor
of
schools
designed
for
the
passing
of
bar
examinations
rather
than
for
preparation
for
the
after
years
of
practice.
Some
states
are
increasing
the
severity
of
their
bar
exam-
inations.
It
is
almost impossible,
however,
to
devise
a
bar
examination
which
will
perfectly
separate
the
sheep
from
the
goats,
and
instead
of
trying
by
the
examination
to
check
the
invasion
of
applicants
at
the
state's last
line
of
defense,
it
is
fairer
both
to
the
state
and
the
candidate
to
do
some
of
the
checking
by
a
process
of
selection
at
an
earlier
period
in
the
candidate's
career.
In
Massachusetts
in
December,
1927,
there were
498
candidates
who
took
the
bar
examinations
and
66%
failed.
In
examinations
of
November,
1927,
in
Mary-
land, and
March,
1928,
in
Rhode
Island,
the
failures
respec-
tively were
69%
and
79%, percentages
which
are
materially
higher
than
in
the
states
requiring
a
larger
amount
of
educa-
tional
preparation
of
candidates.
Would
it
not
have
been
a
better
method
of
choosing
future
lawyers
to
have
required
a
year
or
two
more
of
study
preceding
the
bar
examinations,
rather
than
to
induce
a
period
of
cramming
following
a
fail-
ure?
The
cramming will
be
with
examinations
in
view,
rather than
preparation
for
practice.
There
was
little
criticism
a
generation
ago of
requiring
high
school
graduation
of
our
future
lawyers.
Today
there
is
nearly
as
high
a
proportion
of
the.
population
who
have
completed
two years
of
college,
or
who have
had the
oppor-
tunity
to,
as
there
used
to
be
who
had
completed
high
school.
Not
only
have
colleges
increased
in
number
and
doubled
and
trebled
in
enrollment,
but
summer
schools,
extension
courses
and
the like
have
become
far
more
common
than
formerly.
The
junior
college
movement,
covering the
first
two
years
of
the
college
course,
is
so
recent
that
many
of
us
have
'not
awakened
to
it.
The
1928
"Blue
Book"
lists
some
374
junior
colleges
in
our
48
states,
in
addition
to
our
older
colleges
and
DICTA
universities.
It
is
possible
that
a
present
day
requirement
of
two
years
of
college
does
not
represent
a
real
increase
over
the
apparently
lower requirements
of
thirty
years
ago.
What
has
been
accomplished
to
date,
in
planning
the
make-up
of
the
next
generation
in
the
profession,
is
that
Colo-
rado
and
five
other
states
require
two
years
of
college
plus
three
years
of
law
school,
of
future
attorneys,
these
require-
ments
for
the
most
part
being
put
into
force
very
gradually,
to
give
ample
notice.
Colorado
extended
every
consideration
to
those
whose
preparation
had
begun
under
earlier
rules,
and
hardships
were
avoided
when
possible.
Several
additional
states
seem
likely
to
join
these
six
in
the
near
future.
Delicacy
interferes
with
suggesting
to
a
sister
state
that
she
raise
her
bar
admission
requirements,
but
example
is
very
effective.
In
Colorado
the
number
of
new
attorneys
per
annum
is
not
grow-
ing
larger.
Law
schools,
under
the
regulations
of
Colorado
and
many
other
states,
have
largely
superseded
law
offices
as
a
place
of
preparation
for
the
bar.
Colorado's law
schools
all
require
their
graduates
to
have
two
years of
college
work,
followed
by
three
years
of
law
school
study,
and
the
same is
true
of
over
a
third
of the
country's law
schools.
The
American
Bar
Association's
Council
and the
Asso-
ciation
of
American
Law
Schools
have
gotten
into
close
touch
and
co-operation,
with
increased
effectiveness,
and
have
cre-
ated
a
standard
by
which
law
schools can
be
measured
and
compared.
The
Carnegie
Foundation for
the
Advancement
of
Teaching
is
making
elaborate
and
impartial
studies
of
the
work
of
these
two
organizations,
and
of
legal
education,
and
is
giving
them
publicity.
The
Colorado
authorities
have
made
full
use
of
the
material
in
recent
revisions
of
rules,
as
have
the
authorities
of
Illinois,
Kansas,
New
York,
Ohio
and
West
Virginia.
Montana
and
Wisconsin
are
close
behind.
When
the bench
and
bar
of
other
sections
come
to
consider
the
data
now
so
complete
and
accessible,
it
seems
likely
that
other
states,
whose
bar
admission
requirements
were
fixed
before
there
were
ready
reference
works
on
the
subject,
will
act
in
the
mattter,
and
revise
their
bar
admission
requirements
upward
or
downward,
consistently
with
the
policies
upon
which
they
determine.
