In re Egan’s Empirical Analysis
1928
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently February 2020 · most notably In Re Stump (1938), In Re the Petition for Reinstatement to Practice Law of Braverman (1974)
25 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Ex parte Garland · Wall · Ex parte Robinson · Selling v. Radford · Knewel v. Egan
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions. A fair private and professional character is one of them. Compliance with that condition is essential at the moment of admission; *Page 200 but it is equally essential afterwards [citing cases]. * * * To refuse admission to an unworthy applicant is not to punish him for past offenses. The examination into character, like the examination into learning, is merely a test of fitness. To strike the unworthy lawyer from the roll is not to add to the pains and penalties of crime. The examination into character is renewed; and the test of fitness is no longer satisfied. For these reasons courts have repeatedly said that disbarment is not punishment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“A certificate of admission to the bar is a pilot’s license which authorizes its possessor to assume full control of the important affairs of others and to guide and safeguard them when, without such assistance, they would be helpless. Moreover, in [South Dakota] it is a representation made by this court that he [ or she] is worthy of the unlimited confidence which clients repose in their attorneys; trustworthy to an extent that only lawyers are trusted, and fit and qualified to discharge the duties which devolve upon members of his profession.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“‘the right to practice law' is not in any proper sense of the word a ‘right’ at all, but rather a matter of license and high privilege. Certainly, it is in no sense an absolute right. It is in the nature of a franchise to the enjoyment of which no one is admitted as a matter of right, but only upon proof of fitness and qualifications which must be maintained if the privilege is to continue in enjoyment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.