In re Egan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Our statutes (section 704, P.C.) prescribe that certain things “are sufficient causes for revocation or suspension,” but such section certainly does not make it mandatory upon the court to disbar or suspend an attorney against whom one or more of the “causes” may be proven, if from the whole evidence the court should be satisfied that at the time of such disbarment proceeding the attorney was a person of good moral character and fitted to remain an attorney; neither does such statute prescribe the limits beyond which a court is forbidden to go in investigating the alleged unfitness of an attorney to retain his license. This distinction must be borne in mind: The law punishes one for what he does, not for what he is, while an attorney is disbarred because of what he is as proven, as of course it only could be proven, by what he has done. It is this that fundamentally differentiates a disbarment proceeding from a criminal prosecution, and proves the correctness of the holding that a disbarment proceeding is purely civil in its nature. State v. Kirby, [ 36 S.D. 188 ,] 154 N.W. 284 [(1915)], decided at this term. A person is licensed to practice as an attorney when, in the method established by law, he has been found to be fitted to serve as such attorney; he is suspended or disbarred when it is adjudged that he is unfitted so to serve. The public seeks redress, through a criminal action, for a wrong done it by one acting as an attorney at law; it seeks protection from further wr”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re the Discipline of Tornow