Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/67

Rh The original body of tliem has separated itself primarily into two great divisions—those directly concerned in carrying on causes in law-courts and those indirectly concerned who prepare the cases, collect evidence, summon witnesses, etc. Within the first of these classes has arisen a partial distinction between those whose business is mainly in courts and those whose business is mainly in chambers; and there are further segregations determined by the different courts in which the pleadings are carried on. To which add the cross-division of this class into Queen's Counsel or leaders, and ordinary barristers or juniors. Then in the accessory class—lawyers commonly so-called—we have the distinction, once well recognised, between attorneys and solicitors, arising from the separate divisions of jurisprudence with which they were concerned, but which has now lapsed. And we have various miscellaneous subdivisions partially established, as of those mainly concerned with litigious matter and those mainly concerned with non-litigious matter; of those who transact business directly and of those who act for others; those who are parliamentary agents; and so on.

In their general character, if not in their details, the facts now to be named will be anticipated by the reader. He will look for illustrations of the integrating tendency, and he will not be mistaken in so doing.

Very soon after the divergence of the legal class from the clerical class had commenced, there arose some union among members of the legal class. Thus we read that in France—

"En 1274, le concile de Lyon, dans quelques dispositions relatives aux procureurs, les met à peu près sur le même pied que les avocats. C'est que dès lors les procureurs forment une corporation qui se gouverne sous l'autorité des Juges d'Eglise."

In England also it appears that the two processes began almost simultaneously. When the deputies of the king in his judicial capacity ceased to be wholly nomadic, and fixed courts of justice were established at Westminster, the advocates, who were before dispersed about the kingdom, began to aggregate in London, where, as Stephen says, they "naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order." Hence resulted the Inns of Court, in which lectures were read and eventually degrees given: the keeping of terms being for a long time the only requirement, and the passing of an examination having but recently become a needful qualification for a call to the bar. Within this aggregate, constituting the collegiate body, we have minor divisions—the benchers who are its governors, the barristers, and the students. This process of incorporation began before the reign of Edward I; and while certain of the inns, devoted to that kind of law which has