During the past month I have begun to prepare a new course I will teach at the law school on Kansas legal history. Because I like to teach as much as possible from primary sources, that is original documents, I have been spending considerable time at the Kansas State Historical Society and local historical societies, including the Douglas County Historical Society here in Lawrence. I have been fortunate to have Paul Wilson as a colleague, for he is the living master of Kansas legal history, and to have found helpful staff everywhere I have worked.
One of the documents I found at the Douglas County Historical Society which I intend to use is one I think many of you will find of interest. It is a one-page broadsheet dated September 1869 and titled "Douglas County Bar, Tariff of Fees." To understand this fee schedule, it is necessary to know a bit about early American legal history as well as about the history of lawyers in Douglas County.
In colonial America, lawyers were not looked upon favorably. In Massachusetts Bay, lawyers were at first banned and then barely tolerated. In other colonies much the same was true. By the time of independence, lawyers has been established as a necessary part of society, but public distrust continued.
One of the ways this distrust manifested itself was in legislation setting the maximum fees a lawyer could charge for particular work. By the 1840s, however, the legal profession had convinced state legislatures that government control of legal fees was not a good idea and fee statutes were repealed or forgotten.
What most in the profession had not considered was that these fee statutes had, in effect, established the "going rate" for legal fees. Their repeal opened the door to a "free market" in legal services. In towns and counties where there were large numbers of lawyers, this led to open competition and price-cutting.
When Lawrence was founded in the mid-1850s, it must have seemed like a land of opportunity to may lawyers back East. The 1866 Lawrence Directory listed 15 law firms and 22 lawyers, and we know that there were others who practiced law on occasion though not as a full-time profession. The total Lawrence population was under 10,000. In 1871 the number of lawyers listed in the Lawrence Directory had more than doubled, while the population remained under 10,000.
These numbers suggest strong competition for law business, and there is other evidence of competition. A number of years ago, Paul Wilson discovered a wonderful letter written in 1862 by Elliot V. Banks, a Lawrence lawyer, who spoke of more lawyers than business in Lawrence. And, an advertisement by E.D. Ladd, a Lawrence attorney, in the May
10, 1867, issue of the Kansas Daily Tribune promised that he would provide his services "at the lowest rates." Competition and price-cutting may have inspired members of the Douglas County Bar to establish a schedule of minimum fees -- the "Tariff of Fees"now residing at the Douglas County Historical Society.
It is common today to hear complaints of the high cost of legal services. The "Tariff of Fees" proves that even a century ago lawyers' services did not come cheap. The minimum charge to take a case to the Kansas Supreme Court was $100. The minimum to try a case in the district court was $25. The defense of an individual charged with a felony was $50, with a misdemeanor was $25 -- at a minimum. Appointment of a guardian cost at least $15, a will at least $10.
To get an idea of what these amounts really mean, consider the following: In 1868 the superintendent of schools in Douglas County earned $500 per year. The Lawrence city attorney and the Lawrence medical health officer were each paid $250 per year for their services. A copy of the Kansas Statutes cost $2, and Swan & Plumb's Justice Practices, a standard handbook for lawyers, cost $5. In 1867, board at the Durfee House in Lawrence, which called itself a "first class house," cost $2 per day. The fees established by the members of the Douglas County Bar in 1869 were hardly a bargain.
One further bit of information may be of some interest. In 1872, the Sedgwick County Bar published a schedule of minimum fees showing $50 for taking a case to the Supreme Court, $10 for a case in the district court, $50 for a felony defense, and $10 for a will. It would have been cheaper to hire a Wichita attorney to take a case to the Supreme Court, but otherwise Sedgwick County attorneys offered no bargains. So, for those of you who believe that legal fees are too high today, think back to a century ago and realize that things might not be so bad now after all.
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