In France, there is the distinction between the _avocat_ (or barrister) and the _avoué_ (or solicitor), and yet there appears to be no hindrance upon the freedom of the _avocat_ in respect of an intermediary. In America, the counsellor-at-law, or “attorney-at-law,” as he is called in Pennsylvania, unites in his legal qualification the right to practise as a solicitor or as a barrister or as both. As a matter of fact, an American law office generally contains several counsellors-at-law, who divide the court and office work up between them. In point of right, however, the counsellor-at-law is perfectly justified in carrying on the joint profession of a barrister and a solicitor. This system is not recommended here, though it seems to work well in America. All--and it may appear a great deal to some people--which one ventures to recommend is the freeing of counsel from the disability of compelling a solicitor’s intervention. That is to say, no change in the existing system is recommended beyond sanctioning the more direct form of access. A solicitor could intervene in the ordinary way between a client and counsel, but counsel should be at liberty to advise, or to advocate the cause, of any client who chose to present himself without the usual intermediary. Advance of the times must almost certainly produce some such system. There can be little doubt that the profession of an advocate would be much facilitated by the change. Indeed, the only possible sufferers would be the solicitors, whose profession offers sufficient variety of work to enable them to sacrifice the costs arising from the invariable custom of intervention. In a great number, perhaps, truly, in the majority, of cases, the present custom might continue to apply; in some, in many, confessedly, clients and barristers would alike avail themselves of the less circumscribed relations. If a member of the Bar is allowed to take “a docker,” or defence direct from a prisoner in the dock, he should certainly, it seems only just to infer, be allowed to admit a client to his chambers, unaccompanied by a solicitor. The fee could be collected by the clerk on the same cash principle which applies to the transactions of the greatest medical experts, or specialists. Certainly, the suggestion has something to recommend it, particularly in these days of practical thought. If a barrister of the Court of Appeal of Paris, or a member of the New York Bar, can be approached direct, there is reason to suppose that the system suggested is neither gross nor one calculated to destroy prestige.