Fordham Makes Startling Accusations Against Jewish Law Students As Higher Require. Ments for Admissi

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

Accusations against Jewish law students and lawyers in New York state were made by Herbert Fordham, a lawyer of 111 Broadway, leader of a movement to raise the educational requirements for admission to the bar in New York State.

Mr. Fordham resigned from the Committee on Character and Fitness of Applicants for Admission to the Bar, after serving a month because, he declared, he felt he was “wasting his time.” In statements issued then, Mr. Fordham declared that he had made a study of fitness of the applicants and had found the majority insufficently educated.

Leading lawyers of New York state appeared yesterday before the Court of Appeals in a six-hour special session to plead that the educational requirements for admission to the bar be raised in order to prevent ignorant law students from becoming lawyers eligible to practice in the courts.

That two years of study in a college or the equivalent and a three years’ course in a law school replace the present requirement of four years in high school was the plea made by a joint committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New York County Lawyers Association and the Committee on Character and Fitness of the First Judicial District together with representatives of the State and American Bar associations and of various local bar associations. Representatives of the law schools of Cornell, Syracuse and Buffalo universities were present to approve of the suggested requirement.

Mr. Fordham, in presenting the plea, said:

MR. FORDHAM’S ARGUMENT

“The problem is to impose proper and wise requirements for admission to the bar. The problem is now acute in the First and Second Judicial districts, that is, in the city of New York. The rural counties in the Second district, Nassau and Suffolk, present no special difficulty. It is a problem of the entire city, complicated by the arbitrary division of the city into counties and judicial districts. The Second district now has a larger population and has or shortly will have more applicants for admission to the bar then the First district. The population of the city and especially of the Borouph of Brooklyn is increasingly Jewish.

“Moreover, a much larger part of the Jewish population desires to enter the law than of any other racial division of the population. Recently a prominent, intelligent and well-informed Jewish lawyer, long a resident of Brooklyn, said that at no distant date 90 per cent of the Brooklyn bar would be Jewish. Also, although there is an occasional Jewish applicant of brilliant mind and good education, most of the Jewish applicants come from ignorant families utterly lacking an American background and within the limitations of the actual work done in the public schools seem unable to acquire sufficient real education and knowledge prior to entering the law schools.

“They have been certified by the Regents, which unfortunately does not mean what it is supposed to mean. These facts are not to be understood to lead to the conclusion that I am or that any one ought to be opposed to Jews or to the ambition of Jewish boys to enter the bar. On the contrary, my own view is that the Jewish boys should be paid the very high compliment of being treated precisely the same as all other American boys without regard to race, religion or place of origin.

“However, the fact as existing and certain arguments occasionally advanced do not indicate the possibility of efforts to pass over deficiencies in training when present in so large an element among the voters. Also it has been suggested by a Jewish lawyer that many of these boys are going into law for the reason that it now is the easiest and cheapest profession that they can enter. They seek to enter at an early age, from 21 to 25. They are younger than many applicants who come from long established American families with a background of generations of life under the English common law.

“My experience in the year 1926 on the committee on character and fitness in the Second district convinced me that very few of all the applicants during the year were learned young men or qualified at the time of appearance before the committee to be admitted to a learned profession. How many were qualified to be practitioners of the law as the law is now practiced here in many law offices I have no means of knowing. Accordingly, on this subject I have expressed, and now express, no opinion.

RELATES OBSERVATIONS

“When I was appointed a member of the committee in the Second district I was kindly permitted to attend meetings of the committee in the First district. There I found conditions as to the type and ‘fitness’ of applicants similar in general to those subsequently observed in the Second district From observation and inquiry I learned that the committees in both districts had developed a line of questions to test the general intellectual attainments of the applicants.

“These questions were neither difficult nor tricky; they were mostly such questions as a boy 12 to 15 years of age should be able to answer. Notwithstanding this fact, many applicants could answer only a few of the questions and some could answer almost none. Nevertheless, these young men, who obviously were not only unlearned in a scholarly sense but really were very ignorant, were admitted either at once or a few months later. This was due to a realization that the power of the committee to overturn the certified results of the public schools of the Regents was doubtful, and also to a strong feeling that to keep out applicants who had met every requirement of the State and had spent several years in preparation was unfair. Indeed, it would seem to be of questionable justice or propriety for the committee to attempt by indirection and device to correct the failure of the public schools and of the Regents properly to perform their duties.

“A generation ago the preliminary requirements for the study of law were lower than are the present requirements. The indisputable fact is not disputed. But a generation ago were lawyers being admitted in this State at the rate of many hundreds a year, a large majority of whom were ignorant of the elementary facts of our literature, our history and our public life? And allowing for a difference in the total numbers of admissions, was any considerable fraction of the applicants then admitted hopelessly deficient in this schoolboy knowledge?

KNOWLEDGE OF APPLICANTS LOW

“Were the incoming lawyers of a generation ago under the impression that George Washington was a General in the civil war? That Daniel Webster was a leading statesman during the Revolution? That Webster was a Southerner and a strict constructionist of the Constitution? Or that John Marshall was still serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States? The true situation must be understood as it actually exists, not as we think it logically ought to be. We may as well face the truth: while the preliminary requirements on paper have gone up, the knowledge of applicants has gone down and is far less than it used to be.”

Mr. Fordham expressed his belief that the bar and public both demand a new and searching consideration by the Court of Appeals on the subject of admission to the bar.

He submitted a number of suggestions, among them the following:

“First–It appears to be the general impression that it is unfair, even were it legal, for the Appellate Division, whether acting in its own person or through its committee, to subject an applicant to tests designed to ascertain whether he really is as well educated as the State has certified him to be. It is thought by many that all tests of general intelligence, education and knowledge should be made by the properly constituted authorities before the student begins the study of the law and not after he has passed his bar examinations. If such tests are faulty and entirely inadequate, as now seems to be the case, the results may be deplorable. Nevertheless, the remedy ought to be sought where the fault lies and not in the Appellate Division. However, should the contrary opinion prevail, then the Appellate Division and its committee on character and fitness should be granted, and should exercise, definite and actual power to exclude applicants for lack of general education.

“Second–Before deciding upon the continuance of present requirements, or upon the adoption of additional requirements, for admission to the bar, it is more acutely necessary than ever before for the court to face the question whether the bar is, and is to continue to be, a learned profession. It is useless to attempt to evade the issue or to defer its consideration. We may as well view the world as it is and as it seems likely to be.

“Another aspect of the situation may be mentioned. While I have no criticism of huge fees, yet as a student of affairs and for many years a business man myself, I cannot believe that indefinitely will business permit the payment to lawyers of anywhere from $50,000 to a $1,000,000 or more for a service that could be obtained from well equipped men, employed as a part of the regular staff of the business needing the service, for perhaps $10,000 to $30,000. Nor merely to cite one illustration, can I believe that rich men and corporations will continue year after year to pay to the Government millions of dollars that they do not owe and then hand over a third of these enormous sums to lawyers who go to Washington and induce Government clerks to pay the millions back again.

“In other words, such practices, while attractive to the few favored lawyers and inciting to the cupidity of beginners, are uneconomic when considered from the point of view of society and consequently sooner or later will be abolished. Although their abolition may be a little retarded by the assumption that the bar is a profession of learning and awe-inspiring importance — and therefore entitled to collect huge fees– it would appear unlikely to be long deferred.

“For these and other reasons I am inclined to believe that the law is slipping from its ancient position of secure superiority and is becoming more and more a mere technical part of the business machine. Greater is he who pays than he who is paid. Greater is he who sends than he who is sent.

URGES STRONG MEASURES

“Fifth–It may be that the court in its wisdom will find that the law is, and ought to continue to be, a learned profession. In that event, in my opinion, strong measures must be taken. No half-hearted or time serving course can succeed. Requirements must be such that they will mean, not alone on paper but truly in the event, the admission to the study of the law only of men who are really educated, men who not only actually possess the education of a 15-year old boy of thirty or forty years ago, but the education of the average college graduate of that period. It will be useless to trust in possible increased efficiency of the high school or of the Regents. It will be useless to insist on higher standards in English and history to be enforced by the Regents. Nothing will come of this but additional complacency and a continuation of the present farcical conditions. True, the standards in the colleges leave much to be desired. True, many college graduates are distinctly not educated men. Nevertheless, the court can harly be expected at this time to do more than to require a diploma from one of a carefully selected list of first class colleges as a condition precedent to entering upon the study of the law.”

Upholding the necessity for higher standards, but objecting to what he termed unjust requirements as to purely formal education, Dean William P. Richardson of the Brooklyn Law School of St. Lawrence University presented a brief representing the attitude of that institution toward the proposed roodification.

He suggested, instead of the requirement of “at least two years study in a college or its substantial equivalent in collegiate training,” persons admitted as attorneys and having no college training at least be required to submit satisfactory evidence of having been admitted as attorneys and having practiced three years in some other State or country. He would abolish the clerkship now required of non-college applicants, because under present conditions it accomplishes but little and because it is an unfair discrimination against non-college graduates. He would require the same preliminary foundation of the non-college applicants as for those having had at least two years in college.

Dean Richardson accentuated the necessity of fundamentals in the lawyer’s educational equipment, but continued:

“Learning, in the sense of the ancient classics, he does not require, but culture, in the sense of sufficient grasp of educational fundamentals, is indispensable if he is to understand his duty and be capable of advocating the causes of others, whether in court or in conference. . . . Education, as we ordinarily understand it, is therefore today a necessity, and not merely an attainment, because its function is no longer merely to polish and ornament–it is the matrix in which the activities of the lawyer are set.”

The Brooklyn Law School recommends that all college training, including two years’ preliminary college training, shall of necessity include thorough courses in the following: English composition, American and English literature, American government and history, European history, economics, chemistry, physics, logic and philosophy and psychology.

George W. Wickersham led the supporters of the stricter requirements. Samuel Seabury of the New York County Lawyers’ Association; George F. Campbell of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; John W. Davis, and Miss Ruth Lewinson supported the stand for stricter requirements, as did Judge Garvin of the Brooklyn Bar Association, Ignatius M. Wilkinson of the Fordham University Law School, and Charles K. Burdick of the Cornel University Law School.

Dr. Augustus S. Downing, Deputy State Commissioner of Education, advised higher requirements.

The New York University Law School through its Faculty, Dean Frank H. Somer, Leslie J. Tompkins, Edwin D. Webb and John Edmond Hewitt, presented a brief, proposing as follows:

That two years of “college work or its equivalent” is necessary as a proper foundation for the study of law.

The opposition was led by Robert Averill and John Raines, representing the Rochester Bar Association. They filed a resolution adopted by the association against the proposition. Mr. Raines said that it might be all right to require a college education for students in the First and Second Appellate divisions, but that up-State there was a different situation.

There it was impossible for many young men to obtain a college education. He declared that office training for the prospective lawyer was excellent; that it grounded him in the principles of law, and that usually the student profited by such contact.

John E. Mack of Dutchess County and Henry W. Shidrane, President of the Orange County Bar did not believe the qualifications should be raised. Frank Pedlow of the Albany County Bar also opposed the proposed change, saying that sufficient qualifications existed in the rules as did Gleason L. Archer, Dean of the Suffolk Law School of Boston.

Meier Steinbrink of the Brooklyn Committee on Character and Fitness made a suggestion that was taken up later by other speakers. He decried the present method of permitting a student to go to the end of his course and then turning him down because he could not pass the test for character and fitness.

“Character and fitness should be searched out first and not at the end of the student’s studies,” he said. “I suggest that at the end of three months he take this examination.”

A questionnaire could be sent to the student and the answers to this would determine some of the finess. “This will not mitigate against any law school,” he said.

While the hearing was going on, Assemblyman Cuvillier introduced a bill which would regulate bar conditions by legislative enactment. The measure would require all persons seeking admission to the bar to study two years in a college and four years in a law school. Instructors or lecturers in law schools would not be permitted to practice law or hold any public office at the same time.

ALFRED M. COHEN AGAIN NAMED HEAD OF HEBREW UNION COLLEGE BOARD

Alfred M. Cohen, president of the Independent Order B’nai Brith, was reelected chairman of the Board of Governors of the Hebrew Union College at a meeting of the Board held in New York at the Harmonic Club. This is Mr. Cohen’s ninth term as head of the Board of Governors.

FRENCH CHURCH CONCERT FOR JEWISH ORPHANAGE

A concert of Jewish and Christian religious music was presented yesterday at the French Protestant Church, New York City.

The Jewish songs were harmonized by Milhaud, French Jewish composer, and Ernest Bloch.

The proceeds of the concert will be divided between a Protesant and a Jewish orphanage in France.