r very delicate and often embarrassing question in the relation of
attorney and client is in regard to the subject of compensation for
professional services.

In all countries advanced in civilization, and whose laws and manners
have attained any degree of refinement, there has arisen an order of
advocates devoted to prosecuting or defending the lawsuits of others.
Before the tribunals of Athens, although the party pleaded his own
cause, it was usual to have the oration prepared by one of an order of
men devoted to this business, and to compensate him liberally for his
skill and learning. Many of the orations of Isocrates, which have been
handed down to us, are but private pleadings of this character. He is
said to have received one fee of twenty talents, about eighteen
thousand dollars of our money, for a speech that he wrote for Nicocles,
king of Cyprus. Still, from all that appears, the compensation thus
received was honorary or gratuitous merely. Among the early institutions
of Rome, the relation of patron and client, which existed between the
patrician and plebeian, bound the former to render the latter assistance
and protection in his lawsuits, with no other return than the general
duty, which the client owed to his patron. As every patrician could not
be a sufficiently profound lawyer to resolve all difficulties, which
might arise in the progress of a complex system of government and laws,
though he still might accomplish himself in the art of eloquence, there
arose soon a new order of men, the jurisconsults. They also received no
compensation. On the public days of market, or assembly, the masters of
the art were seen walking in the forum, ready to impart the needful
advice to the meanest of their fellow-citizens, from whose votes on a
future occasion, they might solicit a grateful return. As their years
and honors increased, they seated themselves at home, on a chair or
throne, to expect with patient gravity the visits of their clients, who
at the dawn of day, from the town and country, began to thunder at their
doors.[32] Often, indeed, the patron was able in his own person to
exercise the office both of advocate and counsellor. It was only in the
more glorious, because the more virtuous, period of the republic, that
the relation was sustained upon so honorable a foundation. In the
progress of society, the business of advocating causes became a distinct
profession; and then it was usual to pay a fee in advance,