Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/670

 LEGAL EDUCATION IN GERMANY value is for a man who does not pass the regular examinations but discontinues the study of law and enters into business or private life. He is in this case not entitled to call himself a lawyer and so he can only show by his doctor's degree that he listened to the wisdom of the professors for some time. This degree is obtained by writing a short treatise on some legal question — the socalled "Dissertation," and by undergoing an oral examination given by the faculty. No special course is demanded. After finishing the three-years course the student has to apply for admission to the final examination and is as a rule admitted if his registry book shows the proper number of semesters and of lectures and seminars. The examination is given by a commission appointed by the Government and consisting of professors and practical lawyers, judges as well as counsellors at law. It is remarkable that this commission is not a Board of the University, which as such does not require a final examination. The outline of the examination in the majority of the German states is as fol lows : After admission the candidate first must write upon a given subject some question out of an important province of the German Law, mostly interwoven with short practical cases. He has a six-weeks period in which to handle the subject in a written treatise, using all resources of knowledge at his com mand. Some weeks after the delivery of this essay the student is summoned for an oral examination before three members of the commission already referred to. He is examined for a period of about five hours and in the course of the examination all branches of law which are taught in the university are touched upon. So he has to have at his command on this one day all his knowledge. The examination is in a few states preceded by written examination papers in a closed room under supervision, an institution which has been lately intro

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duced also in the most important German state — Prussia. In six states these written examination papers under supervision are the only written examination, the sg-called scientific treatise there being abolished. The unsuccessful candidate is allowed to attempt the examination another time but not earlier than half a year later. Upon a second failure he must discontinue his career in law. The successful candidate obtains from the government the degree of "Referendar," which is a title perhaps similar to the Ameri can Bachelor of Law, not at all the key-stone of the legal education but merely indicating a certain stage reached in the lawyer's development. Now an entirely new period of legal educa tion begins, which is of the greatest impor tance for the lawyer's practical development. While the student has dealt with nothing but theory at the university, he enters now upon the study of the courts and of the counsellor's work. His educators are the persons best qualified for this work —judges and counsellors at law. To understand this period of legal educa tion in Germany it is necessary to have a glimpse of the general running of the German Courts. The ordinary jurisdiction in Germany is exercised by a system of four grades of courts, viz: The County Courts (Amtsgerichte), Superior Courts (Landgerichte), Courts of Appeal (Oberlandesgerichte), and the Supreme Court (Reichsgericht). Each of these courts has its special district of jurisdiction and its special work. First, I will consider the County Courts. The County is divided into about fifteen hundred districts of these courts, thus allow ing a small district for each. The popula tion in these several districts may be vastly different. The district of the Amtsgericht, at Berlin Centre for instance, has apopulation of more than one million, while some county court districts in the less densely populated