Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/743

 THE GREEN BAG

702

THE

BARS

OF

UNITED

By Edward S. ' I VHE present ambassador of England to the United States at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, Portland, Maine, in the present year of grace pointed out that "one hundred and thirty-one years have now passed since the majestic current of the Common Law became divided into two streams, which have ever since flowed in distinct channels. Water is naturally affected by the rock over, or the soil through which it flows, but these two streams, separated in 1776, have hitherto preserved almost the same tint and almost the same flavour." It must, however, be conceded that however much this may be so in the case of the substantive princi ples of the law, it is not and can scarcely be expected to be the case in matters adjective which must of necessity be largely influ enced by the environment in which the system of law is applied. Now I propose for a brief space to dwell upon some of the most singular of the divergencies between the development of the legal profession in England and that of the legal profession in the United States, prefacing what I have to say with two observations; first, that although I can claim an intimate knowledge of the system of this side of the Atlantic, I can only claim what may be called a pleasant acquaintanceship, which has largely been contributed to by my friend Mr. Cephas Brainerd of the New York Bar, with the system, analogous, in the United States; secondly, that the differences, whatever they may be, are noted without adjudgment of superiority, because it is obvious that in such a matter the superiority depends wholly upon suitability to environment, and that it is idle surmise to anticipate the effect of the transplanting of systems of professional practice since a system of professional practice is solely a thing of value, in so

STATES

AND ENGLAND

CoX-SlN'CLAIR. far as it accords with the needs of the community served by the profession. At the time of the separation of the United States of America from Great Britain the form of the orders representing the legal profession in England had been completely established. There was in the first place the Bar of England, and in the second place, the body of attorneys or solicitors. Of counsel or members of the Bar, there were two distinct degrees in order of professional seniority; the barristers-at-law (or as they wcre called in the old style the apprentices to the law) and the sergeants-at-law. The latter were, according to Fortescue, of sixteen years standing, and were what we should now call the leaders of the profession. They were bound by a solemn oath to do their duty to their clients, and as Blackstone points out, they were so venerable in their order that by custom the judges of Westminster were always admitted thereto before they were advanced to the Bench; it being sup posed that the origin of that practice was to qualify the puisne" barons of the Exchequer to become justices of assize according to the exigencies of the statute of 14 Edward 3. c. 16. So far as the general body of the Bar was concerned, it consisted of a con siderable number of advocates equally qual ified to practice their profession in evenCourt of the Realm, and yet owing both their forensic creation and their domestic and disciplinary allegiance not to the state or to the Courts, but each to one of four distinct, ancient, insulated and agnated corporations termed the Inns of Court, namely, Gray's Inn, the Middle Temple, the Inner Temple, and Lincoln's Inn. Per haps the best description of their qualifica tion is that found in a mediaeval work of some authority that an advocate (or countor) ought to be "a person receivable in feof