Loyalty Tests for Lawyers

Abstract

The information we have received from the Report of the Conference Working Group, together with the recent survey published by Brown and Fassett, indicate the extent to which loyalty tests are being imposed upon lawyers and the nature of the tests imposed. At a time when various agencies of government are concerning themselves with the loyalty of labor leaders, entertainers, United Nations employees, teachers, authors, newspapermen, and public employees generally, it is not surprising to find such tests imposed upon lawyers. What is unique about the lawyers' experience is that, with very few exceptions, these tests have been imposed by, or at least at the instance of, the bar itself. That bar associations alone should solicit such treatment for their members cannot, I believe, be taken as evidence that lawyers generally are more susceptible to the hysteria of our times than are other men. What it does demonstrate is that we lawyers have allowed the hysterical men among us to exercise a disproportionate amount of influence. And in this instance the hysterical men have had the full support of the American Bar Association, which organization, representing as it does less than 25% of the lawyers in the country, itself has a disproportionate influence on state and local bar associations.