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-- AndrewMcCormick - 13 Nov 2009 | | | The English system suggests informal character selection. In Britain Solicitors received training and eduction by apprenticeship, usually in their teens. One can hardly imagine a solicitor not considering character in selecting a student to work in his office for two gears. The Inns of Court, which provided barristers with accreditation, required presence at meals and casual debates over a number of days in the year; again, one can hardly imagine the Inns not basing admission on partially on character. The British program did not transplant itself across the Atlantic. | |
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< | In early America, lawyers were unwelcome. The practice was viewed as unnecessary and even evil. The "Body of Liberties" of Massachusets Bay, 1641. Available here: BodyofLiberties, fascinatingly prohibits legal representatives from taking fees in section #26. Similarly, the Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolinas (1669), Carolinas, article 70 proclaims lawyering for money as "base and vile". The disdain for lawyers was not limited to legislatures, the public also held them in disdain. J. McMaster, A History of the Poeple of The United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War (1927) "With the merchants, in the condemnation of the multitude, were joined the lawyers. Indeed, of the two classes, the memers of the bar were the more hated and despised. The mere sight of a lawyer as he hurried along the street was enough to call forth an oath or a muttered curse from the louts who hung round the tavern... They were denounced as banditti, as blood-suckers, as pick-pockets, as wind-bags, as smooth-tongued rogues." (as an aside, an interesting side project would be investigating early letters and publications targeting lawyers - if anyone's interested, beginning with Benjamin Austin's letters signed "Honestus" might be a starting point) | >
> | In early America, lawyers were unwelcome. The practice was viewed as unnecessary and even evil. The Body of Liberties of Massachusetts Bay, 1641, fascinatingly prohibited legal representatives from taking fees in section 26. Similarly, the 1669 Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolinas' article 70 proclaims practicing law for money as "base and vile". The disdain for lawyers was not limited to legislatures, the public also held them in disdain. J. McMaster, A History of the People of The United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War (1927) "With the merchants, in the condemnation of the multitude, were joined the lawyers. Indeed, of the two classes, the members of the bar were the more hated and despised. The mere sight of a lawyer as he hurried along the street was enough to call forth an oath or a muttered curse from the louts who hung round the tavern... They were denounced as banditti, as blood-suckers, as pick-pockets, as wind-bags, as smooth-tongued rogues." (as an aside, an interesting side project would be investigating early letters and publications targeting lawyers - if anyone's interested, beginning with Benjamin Austin's letters signed "Honestus" might be a starting point) | | | Character and fitness standards may have been a "showpiece", to borrow Rhode's term, designed to achieve two ends: (1) quell the dislike of lawyers by non-lawyer classes in early America, especially until lawyers became an accepted fixture of American professional culture and (2) to provide some semblance of retaining Britain's elite solicitor class by attempting to give American lawyers elevated personal status. | | | 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"?)
End of 19th and beginning of 20th century saw formalization and stiffening, but number of those denied entry for character reasons remained very small. In 1878 the ABA formed in New York, including formalizing rules for character, "Court of Appeals fixed requirements for preliminary education and proof of character" and required that "as a condition precedent to admission to the Bar, the character of | |
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< | each applicant will be subjected to a scrutiny which will be genuine and not perfunctory." (Smith, Admission to the Bar in New York, 16 Yale L.J. (1907), attached below as 16_YLJ_514). Before that time, there was no code of ethics and education remained informal. See generally, BarHistory. | >
> | each applicant will be subjected to a scrutiny which will be genuine and not perfunctory." (Smith, Admission to the Bar in New York, 16 Yale L.J. (1907), attached below as 16_YLJ_514). Before that time, there was no code of ethics and education remained informal. See generally, The ABA's Bar History page. | | | | | | Although not directly pertaining to character, several instances in a 1907 Yale Law Journal article suggest that bar admissions criteria were severely lax, and one might suppose the ease of entry would extend to character standards. In Kentucky, a candidate who was unable to supply any correct answers to legal questions was admitted on the theory that no one would employ him "anyhow." (Rhode in FN20, quoting Smith, Admission to the Bar in New York, 16 Yale L.J. (1907), attached below as 16_YLJ_514). | |
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< | Gawalt. The Promise of Power: The Emergence of the Legal Profession in Mass. 1760-1840
Character Examination of Candidates, I B. Examiner (1932)
Douglas, The Pennsylvania System Governing Admission to the Bar, 54 Rep. A.B.A. (1929) (Rhode uses to demonstrate "unworthiness" standard) | | |
The Role of Education in Character and Fitness
Early lawyers used apprenticeship which was a filtering device... (rhode, et al) | |
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< | After the 19th century, law schools may have been responsible for legal ethics... (Stevens) | | | | |
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< | Character, Fitness, Race, and Gender. | >
> | After the 19th century, law schools may have been responsible for legal ethics. 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). This would suggest an interesting and difficult historical project - discovering what the historical standards were for character assessment by law schools during the early and middle 20th century (if curious, Rhode has surveyed present standards here). | | | | |
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> | Character, Fitness, Race, and Gender. | | |
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> | remaining/partially integrated sources | | | | |
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> | Gawalt. The Promise of Power: The Emergence of the Legal Profession in Mass. 1760-1840 | | | | |
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> | Character Examination of Candidates, I B. Examiner (1932)
Douglas, The Pennsylvania System Governing Admission to the Bar, 54 Rep. A.B.A. (1929) (Rhode uses to demonstrate "unworthiness" standard) | | | Confronting Racists at the Bar: Matthew Hale, Moral Character, and Regulating the Marketplace.
Jason O. Billy | | | | |
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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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