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-- AndrewMcCormick - 13 Nov 2009 | | | Friedman argues that "As soon as... society posed problems for which lawyers had an answer..., layers began to thrive, despite the hostility.", . As the profession grew, one might hypothesize that established lawyers would use character and fitness standards to limit entry to the profession for economic reasons. Alternatively, lawyers may have had class-based motivations; between 1800 and 1900 the class of men composing the profession shifted from the "elite" to middle class and business backgrounds (Friedman), and elite class may have developed character standards as barriers for entry. However, Rhode's empirical research suggests that if were this a motivation, it was an ineffective ploy. | |
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> | A law review article on Hamlin's Legal Education in Colonial New York, New York University Law Quarterly Review 1939, discussed character of lawyers and men of government critically, and commenting on the unprofessional legal system in early America. On the other hand, AAlexis de Tocqueville, on Lawyers and Judges, attached a certain importance and conservatism to American lawyers. Interestingly, de Tocqueville observes that "they entertain the same repugnance of the actions of the multitude [as the aristocracy]", suggesting that, despite Hamlin's comments that the legal profession in America was, compared to that of Britian, base and common, America's legal community harbored elitism. | | | George Sharswood, in An Essay on Professional Ethics, 1884, demonstrates the shift from wishing to eliminate the legal profession to a desire to hold it to a high standard, "the things we hold dearest on earth... we confide to the integrity of our legal counsellors[sic] and advocates. Their character must be not only without a stain, but without suspicion." Lawyers became an established fixture of American commerce, and character and fitness standards were present if unused.
During 18th and 19th centuries, bar examinations were orally administered before a judge, and according The Troubling Rise of the Legal Profession's Good Moral Character "in the entire nineteenth century, there were virtually no reported instances in which applicants were banned for their character." (Comment on notes not played? Thelonious Monk? Look to the importance of "reported instances"?) | | | | |
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< | American Legal History. Hall, Wiecek, Finkelman. Oxford Univ. Press, 1006. | >
> | Secondary sources, with relevant portions scanned below as "Rhode and Hall", including direct reproductions of (1) Alexis de Tocqueville "on Lawyers and Judges" 1835, (2) P. W. GRAYSON [peeud.] "Vice Unmasked, an Essay: Being a Consideration of the Influence of Law upon the Moral Essence of Man ..."1830, (3) Alexis De 'I'ocqueville, Democracy in America Vol. I, 283-90 (H. Reeve trans., P. Bradley ed., F. Bowen rev., 1973) Ost ed. 1835). | | | | |
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> | American Legal History. Hall, Wiecek, Finkelman. Oxford Univ. Press, 1006. | | | Legal Ethics, Fifth Ed. Rhode, Luban. Foundation Press, 2009. | |
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< | A law review article on Hamlin's Legal Education in Colonial New York, New York University Law Quarterly Review 1939, discussed character of lawyers and men of government critically, and commenting on the unprofessional legal system in early America. On the other hand, AAlexis de Tocqueville, on Lawyers and Judges, attached a certain importance and conservatism to American lawyers. Interestingly, points out that "they entertain the same repugnance of the actions of the multitude [as the aristocracy]", suggesting that, despite Hamlin's comments that the legal profession in America was, compared to that of Britian, base and common, America's legal community harbored elitism.
Law School: legal education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s, Robert Stevens. Partially available here, LegalEd Argues that, at least since modern legal education, with the exception of a very active bar in the early 1950s seeking to exclude left-wing individuals, the bar primarily thought law schools were responsible for the ethics of lawyers (237) | >
> | Interesting sources for those wishing to investigate further: | | | Rise of the Legal Profession in America (Volumes 1&2), Chroust, University of Okla. 1965. | |
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< | Lefler, Hugh Talmage. 1956. North Carolina History told by contemporaries. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (pincite to 87 for "will eat out the very Bowels of our Commonwealth")
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> | Lefler, Hugh Talmage. 1956. North Carolina History told by contemporaries. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. | | | | |
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> | Law School: legal education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s, Robert Stevens. Partially available here, LegalEd Argues that, at least since modern legal education, with the exception of a very active bar in the early 1950s seeking to exclude left-wing individuals, the bar primarily thought law schools were responsible for the ethics of lawyers (237) | | | | | | | |
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