Ethics in Service

Ethics in Service is written by William Howard Taft , the 27th president of the United States and the tenth chief justice of the United States, the only person to have held both offices.

Author's Preface:

The legal profession discharges a most important function in a civilized community, and it seems to me that a discussion of the ethics and ideals of that profession would come within the purpose of the Page foundation, which is described by the donor as intended to promote "the ethical side of business life, including the morals and ethics of public service." I shall first ask your attention to the history of the profession, which shows that a paid advocacy is the only practical system, and to the rules of conduct to which lawyers must be held in order that such a system shall promote justice.

I cannot claim to have any peculiar knowledge upon this subject other than that derived from a somewhat brief practice of five years at the Bar, from an experience of eleven years on the Bench of trial and appellate courts, from a somewhat varied experience in the responsibility of government, not only in this country, but in those far-distant isles of the Pacific in which the United States has been grafting the principles of free government upon a civilization inherited from Spain.