Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/469

356 earliest days of the colony there were attorneys, any true sketch of their personal traits, character or causes in which they appeared are, for the most part, lost if, in fact, they were ever printed.

It is believed, however, that no license upon examination was required for the practice of the law, until May, 1732 (6 Geo. II); before that time, the profession was, to some extent, recruited from the aristocracy of the colony, who were educated in the law at the Temple, either emigrating as lawyers or being sent to England for the purpose of a classic and legal education. However, these gentlemen, so eminently prepared for the arduous labors of the profession, were greatly in the minority, for it is an historical fact that our ancestors cherished bitter prejudices against the professional lawyer, a dislike which seemed at the time also to prevail in England, and was brought about, no doubt, either by jealousy at their rise to fame, especially in England, by distrust, or by considering them in the light of mercenary traders upon the misfortunes of others — this condition prevailing in Virginia, as a few quotations from early statutes will disclose.

The earliest manifestation of this, occurred the year 1642, when an act was passed, "For the better regulating attorneys, and the great fees exacted by them," by which it was declared that it should be, — "Not lawful to plead for another without license from the court where he pleadeth, and can have license only in the quarter-court," (held by the governor and council at the seat of government at Williamsburg), "and one county-court." The same act also prescribing what fees should be taken; for the county-court (where the great bulk of the business was transacted), twenty pounds of tobacco, and in the quarter-court (the supreme court of the colony), fifty pounds. The act concludes, "No attorney shall refuse to be entertayned provided he be not entertayned by the opposite party," upon pain of heavy fines, (1 Hen. Stats. 275).

In November, 1645, we find the following statute:

"Whereas, many troublesome suits are multiplied by the unskillfulness and covetousness of attorneys, who have more intended their own profit, and their inordinate lucre, than the good of their clients; Be it, therefore, enacted, that all mercenary attorneys be wholly expelled from such office." (1 Hen. Stats. 302.)

In the year 1647, we read the following:

"It is thought fitt that unto the act for bidding mercenary attorneys, it bee added that they shall not take any recompense, either directly or indirectly. And that it be further enacted, that in case the courts shall perceive that in any case, either plaintiff or defendant, by his weakness, shall be likely to lose his cause, that they themselves may either open the cause in such case of weakness, or shall appoint some fitt man out of the people to plead the cause, and allow him satisfaction requisite, and not to allow any other attorneys in private causes betwixt man and man in the country." (i Hen. Stats. 349.)

Thus the profession seems, with varying success, to have struggled until March, 1658, when some proposition was brought for ward by the house of burgesses (the popular branch of the colonial legislature) which, in its short-sighted wisdom — in the mean while it having been referred to the Governor, Sir William Claiborne — proposed, whether or not there should be a total ejection of lawyers. The subject of such drastic legislation being submitted to the Burgessees by the Governor and Council for investigation whether there was anything in Magna Charta to prohibit it, and having been answered in the negative, a vote for a total ejection was carried — the following statute being enacted in March, 1658. (9 Commonwealth).

"Whereas, there doth much charge and trouble arise by the admittance of attorneys and lawyers, through pleading of causes, thereby to maintaine suites in lawe to the