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64 A.B.A. J 1038 (1978)
The First Century of the American Bar Association

handle is hein.journals/abaj64 and id is 1040 raw text is: The First Century of the American Bar Association No commemoration of the Association's centenary would be complete without an account of its achievements, but the task of writing its history obviously presents problems of organization. A strictly chronological account would run the risk of the kind of boredom we remember from school days when lists of monarchs and dates of battles made history painful. On the other hand a detailed account of all the activities of the Association would exceed the space available. Whitney North Seymour, who was president of the Association in 1960-61, took a different tack, noting some of the general aspects of the Association's history within defined historical periods, then dealing with a few episodes that are of the greatest interest and importance. By Whitney North Seymour AT THE TIME of the founding of the American Bar As- sociation in 1878, most lawyers were sole practition- ers, trained in law offices, with no pressure beyond their own consciences to feel that public or profes- sional responsibility required concern with the public interest. Most thought it enough to use the skills they had to advance the interests of their clients and their own fortunes. No uniform code of ethics governed their conduct; few institutions for common effort were available. The spirit of brotherhood was found primarily in the tavern, the courtroom, and the home. Judges and courts did what they thought right with no organized help from the bar. And the problems of ju- dicial administration created by modern social wel- fare, regulatory, and environmental legislation were literally unknown. It would, of course, be wrong to assume that those lawyers were benighted or without standards. Like the rest of their countrymen, they had the benefit of the moral lessons then generally learned in church, home, and school. The lawyers who largely wrote the Constitution and later helped the Supreme Court reach its views about interpreting it were scholarly, inspired men. Some 1038 American Bar Association Journal

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