LINCOLN’S LEGAL FEES: ONE CONTROVERSY
Michael Sean Quinn*


            Abe Lincoln has a law practice in Illinois before he was president, as everyone knows. It was a general practice—some litigation, some transactional work, some lobbying, especially at times when he was in or closely connected to the state legislature.
            Some of the sources of his business were railroads, an important and growing component of the state’s economy. Sometimes he worked for them, and sometimes he worked against them. Obviously, either disciplinary rules or the willingness of clients to consent to conflicting representations have changed substantially in the last 150 years, or so.  
In any case, at least one of these representations ended up in a fee dispute. That case involved a state law regarding the right of counties to tax the property of railroads, in this case, the Illinois Central Railroad.  The precise issues in the case don’t matter for the purpose of this story. Lincoln represented the ICR. Another attorney for it had lost the case in the trial court, and Lincoln joined in appealing the case to the Illinois Supreme Court. There, the rail line prevailed. Lincoln’s work may have contributed to the victory, perhaps since the court cited a number of the cases to be found in his brief.
            At this point, I take the rest of the story from Brian McGinty’s LINICOL’S GREATEST CASE: THE RIVER, THE BRIDGE, AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA (2015). This story is part of the background for the case which is the topic of the book.
            “After the case of Illinois Central Railroad Company v. County of McLean[, 17 Ill. 291 (1857)] was concluded, Lincoln presented a bill for his services. Years later, [William H. (Billy)] Herndon recalled that the amount was originally $2000 but that the railroad refused to pay. Herndon said that the railroad official in Chicago exclaimed, ‘Why, sir, this is as much as Daniel Webster himself would have charged. We cannot allow such a claim.’ Stung by the rebuff, Lincoln increased his bill to $5000, and in January 1857, filed suit against the railroad for that amount. He submitted to the court a written opinion signed by six highly respected lawyers stating that this services in behalf of the railroad were reasonably worth $5000, and on June 23, 1857, the court awarded him judgment in that amount. After the sheriff was given a writ to collect the judgment, the railroad relented, paying Lincoln $4,800, the amount of the judgment less Lincoln’s initial retainer of $200. Since his agreement with Herndon[, his law partner,] called for equal division of all of their fees, Lincoln promptly gave his partner one-half of the money he received.” (pp. 30-31)

            The size of legal fees is an old problem.  According to one currency calculator on the Internet, $2000 in 1857 was worth $56,000 in 2014, and $5000 in 1857 was worth 140,000 in 2014. Issues about legal fees go a long way back.  See my blog-essay  Legal Fees and Legal History–Legal Ethics, Excessive Fees: An Old Story (April 7, 2013)


            McGinty’s book does not say whether there was an explicit agreement as to the legal fee beforehand.  If it was a contingency fee, there is no doubt that Lincoln’s fee was reasonable.  The book does, however say, in a footnote, that the oft repeated proposition that the official at the ICR was George McClain, later an important Union General whom Lincoln fired) is false.  Then again, McGinty’s dates on some of the related events don’t initially strike one as quite right. 
Michael Sean Quinn, Ph.D., J.D.
The Law Firm of Michael Sean Quinn et
Quinn and Quinn
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 P.S. For readers who like this sort of thing, McGinty’s informal book is an easy and fun read about both the development of commercial land and river transportation, an interesting accident involving a ship colliding with a bridge across the Mississippi, and about the resultant law suit. There is even a bit of insurance built into the discussions.