[Footnote 1:  Sharswood’s Essay on Professional Ethics, pp. 57, 99,102,167 f.]

As illustrative of the carelessness with which popular charges against an entire profession are made the basis of reflections upon the ethical standard of that profession, the comments of Dr. Hodge on this matter are worthy of particular notice.  In connection with his assertion that “the principles of professional men allow of many things which are clearly inconsistent with the requirements of the ninth commandment,” he says:  “Lord Brougham is reported to have said, in the House of Lords, that an advocate knows no one but his client.  He is bound per fas et nefas, if possible, to clear him.  If necessary for the accomplishment of that object, he is at liberty to accuse and defame the innocent, and even (as the report stated) to ruin his country.  It is not unusual, especially in trials for murder, for the advocates of the accused to charge the crime on innocent parties and to exert all their ingenuity to convince the jury of their guilt.”  And Dr. Hodge adds the note that “Lord Brougham, according to the public papers, uttered these sentiments in vindication of the conduct of the famous Irish advocate Phillips, who on the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord Russell, endeavored to fasten the guilt on the butler and housemaid, whom he knew to be innocent, as his client had confessed to him that he had committed the murder."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Hodge’s Systematic Theology, III., 439.]

Now the facts, in the two very different cases thus erroneously intermingled by Dr. Hodge, as given by Justice Sharswood,[1] present quite another aspect from that in which Dr. Hodge sees them, as bearing on the accepted ethics of the legal profession.  It would appear that Lord Brougham was not speaking in defense of another attorney’s action, but in defense of his own course as attorney of Queen Caroline, thirty years before the Courvoisier murder trial.  As Justice Sharswood remarks of Lord Brougham’s “extravagant” claims:  “No doubt he was led by the excitement of so great an occasion to say what cool reflection and sober reason certainly never can approve.”  Yet Lord Brougham does not appear to have suggested, in his claim, that a lawyer had a right to falsify the facts involved, or to utter an untruth.  He was speaking of his supposed duty to defend his client, the Queen, against the charges of the King, regardless of the consequences to himself or to his country through his advocacy of her cause, which he deemed a just one.

[Footnote 1:  Sharswood’s Legal Ethics, p. 86 f.]