It is unnecessary to inquire here whether such a contract is void as champertous, and contrary to public policy. None of the English statutes on the subject of champerty have been reported as in force here; but it was once a question whether it was not an offence at common law, independently altogether, of any statute enactment. Enlightened judges in several of our sister States have so considered it. "The purchase of a lawsuit," says Chancellor Kent, "by an attorney, is champerty in its most odious form; and it ought equally to be condemned on principles of public policy. It would lead to fraud, oppression, and corruption. As a sworn minister of the courts of justice, the attorney ought not to be permitted to avail himself of the knowledge he acquires in his professional character, to speculate in lawsuits. The precedent would tend to corrupt the profession, and produce lasting mischief to the community."[48] "This is not the time nor place," says Chief Justice Gibson, "to discuss the legality of contingent fees; though it be clear that if the British statutes of champerty were in force here, such fees would be prohibited by them. But a contract of the sort is certainly not to be encouraged by implication, from a questionable usage, nor established by less than a positive stipulation."[49] A contract to allow a compensation for services in procuring the passage of a private Act of Assembly, has been held to be unlawful and void, as against public policy.[50] "The practice," said Judge Rogers, in delivering the opinion of the court, "which has generally obtained in this State, to allow a contingent compensation for legal services, has been a subject of regret; nor am I aware of any direct decision by which the practice has received judicial sanction in our courts." The case of _Ex parte Plitt_,[51] however, recognizes fully the lawfulness of contingent fees, though in his opinion Judge Kane says: "It is not a practice to be generally commended, exposing honorable men not unfrequently to misapprehension and illiberal remark, and giving the apparent sanction of their example to conduct, which they would be among the foremost to reprehend. Such contracts may sometimes be necessary in a community such as that of Pennsylvania has been, and perhaps as it is yet; and when they have been made in abundant good faith--_uberrima fide_--without suppression or reserve of fact or exaggeration of apprehended difficulties, or under influence of any sort or degree; and when the compensation bargained for is absolutely just and fair, so that the transaction is characterized throughout by 'all good fidelity to the client,' the court will hold such contracts to be valid. But it is unnecessary to say, that such contracts, as they can scarcely be excepted from the general rule, which denounces as suspicious the dealings of fiduciaries with those under their protection, must undergo the most exact and jealous scrutiny before they can expect the judicial