Healthy Oath

Shyster lawyers propped unshined shoes on dirty desks and snickered. At Justice Joseph M. Proskauer of the New York Supreme Court* their giggles were aimed.

He had suggested at the Bar Association that lawyers fortify their ethics.

In deep carpeted downtown offices majestic attorneys reading Justice Proskauer's suggestion went into conference with their consciences. A lawyer is retained to win cases for his clients. Many a potent legal mind has found fame and money in acquittals for clients of whose guilt he must have been morally assured.

Fame and money thus won and honored weaken respect for the profession by its own professionals. There are good lawyers who stretch many a point of conscience to win cases. Justice Proskauer meditated on machinery to stop such stretching.

In his meditations he bethought him of the Hippocratic Oath which doctors swear.

Justice Proskauer sat down and busily drew up a lawyer's oath. He would have every lawyer fortify his oath of admission to the Bar, saying: "I swear I will join with my adversary in waiving a jury trial wherever and whenever it can possibly be done without the sacrifice of a fundamental right. I will join with my adversary in supporting a trial Justice in fair comment upon the evidence and reasonable direction to a jury on the facts. I will join with my adversary in fair concession of undisputed facts.

I will not put an adversary to his proof in respect to facts whose existence my client admits. I will refrain from merely formal or technical objection to the admission of evidence.

I will cooperate with the trial Justice and my adversary to secure a speedy, prompt and complete presentation of the facts of the case. I will neither make nor oppose interlocutory motions unless they are of real and practical importance. I will take no appeal unless I am satisfied that substantial error has been committed and that a new trial should reasonably give a different result." To this credo listeners, including many a distinguished lawyer, resolved complete approval.

Hippocrates, "Father of Medicine," lived in the 5th Century B.C. and like Solon the "Law Giver" fixed rules for the conduct of his profession. His Oath, to which Justice Proskauer referred, is (in its Christianized version): "Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever, I lie not.

"I will bring no stain upon the learning of the medical art. Neither will I give poison to anybody though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan. Similarly I will not give treatment to women to cause abortion, treatment neither from above nor be low. But I will teach this art to those who require to learn it, without grudging and without an indenture. I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment. And in purity and in holiness will I guard my art. Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all wrong doing, intentional or unintentional, tending to death of injury, and from fornication with bond or free, man or woman. Whatsoever in the course of practice I see or hear (or outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought not to be published abroad, I will not divulge, but consider such to be holy secrets. Now, if I keep this oath and break it not, may God be my helper in my life and art, and may I be honored among all men for all time. If I keep faith well; but if I forswear myself may the opposite be fall me."

*The New York judicial system includes magistrate courts (equivalent to police or municipal courts in other states), supreme courts (equivalent to county courts), appellate divisions of supreme courts (equivalent to courts of appeal) and courts of appeals (equivalent to the supreme court). Justice Proskauer is on the appellate division bench.