July 30, 1979: SC rules, "Practice of law NOT money-making trade"

The practice of law is intimately and peculiarly related to the administration of justice and should not be considered like an ordinary "money-making trade." 

It is of the essence of a profession that it is practiced in a spirit of public service. A trade ... aims primarily at personal gain; a profession at the exercise of powers beneficial to mankind. If, as in the era of wide free opportunity, we think of free competitive self assertion as the highest good, lawyer and grocer and farmer may seem to be freely competing with their fellows in their calling in order each to acquire as much of the world's good as he may within the allowed him by law. But the member of a profession does not regard himself as in competition with his professional brethren. He is not bartering his services as is the artisan nor exchanging the products of his skill and learning as the farmer sells wheat or corn. There should be no such thing as a lawyers' or physicians' strike. The best service of the professional man is often rendered for no equivalent or for a trifling equivalent and it is his pride to do what he does in a way worthy of his profession even if done with no expectation of reward, This spirit of public service in which the profession of law is and ought to be exercised is a prerequisite of sound administration of justice according to law. The other two elements of a profession, namely, organization and pursuit of a learned art have their justification in that they secure and maintain that spirit. (PETITION FOR AUTHORITY TO CONTINUE USE OF THE FIRM NAME "SYCIP, SALAZAR, FELICIANO, HERNANDEZ & CASTILLO"; https://www.lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1979/jul1979/PETITION%20TOCONTINUE%20THE%20USE%20OF%20THE%20NAME%20SYCIP_1979.html)