When people go to law about an uncertain title, and have spent the
value of their whole estate in the contest, nothing is more common
than to find that some unprincipled attorney has secured the object
in dispute to himself. The very name of law seems to imply equity and
justice, and that is the bait which has drawn in many to their ruin.
If we would lay aside passion, prejudice, and folly, and think calmly
of the matter, we should find that going to law is not the best way
of deciding differences about property; it being, generally speaking,
much safer to trust to the arbitration of two or three honest sensible
neighbours, than at a vast expence of money, time, and trouble, to run
through the tedious frivolous forms, with which, by the artifices of
greedy lawyers, a court of judicature is contrived to be attended. Or
if a case should happen to be so intricate that a man of common sense
cannot distinguish who has the best title, how easy would it be to have
the opinion of the best counsel in the land, and agree to abide by his
decision. If it should appear dubious, even after that, how much better
would it be to divide the thing in dispute, rather than go to law, and
hazard the losing, not only of the whole, but costs and damages into
the bargain!
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