606 



LAW. 



cutes in Scotland. No person can be called to the 

 bar until he is twenty-one years of age. The call 

 to the bar is by an art of the benchers in council 

 or parliament, i.c. assembled. The name and de- 

 scription of every candidate for being called to the 

 bar must be hung up in the hall a fortnight before 

 lie is to be called ; any person applying to be called 

 to the bar must make application to a master of the 

 bench to move for the same. And the list of appli- 

 cants to be called to the bar at any society, is always 

 transmitted, before the call takes place, to the 

 other societies. 



"At the Inner Temple, Middle Temple and Lin- 

 coln's Inn, no attorney, solicitor, or proctor, can be 

 admitted to commons for the purpose of being 

 called to the bar, until his name shall have been 

 struck off the roll. 



"In Lincoln's Inn, a person wishing to be called 

 to the bar must read his exercise at. the bar table, 

 and the barristers at that table have a power of 

 rejection, subject to an appeal to the benchers. 

 If not rejected by the bar table, it is still necessary 

 that he should be approved by the bench. 



"At Lincoln's Inn, it is a rule that no person in 

 trade is permitted to do exercises, to enable him to 

 be called to the bar ; and there is the same prohi- 

 bition as to any person who has been in the situ- 

 ation of clerk to a barrister, conveyancer, special 

 pleader, or chancery draftsman, and has done the 

 offices and received the perquisites of such clerk. 



" 3d. As to the case of rejection upon an applica- 

 tion to be admitted student, or to be called to the 

 bar. 



" The general state of practice in all the societies 

 appears to be as follows: 



" If a person be refuse.! admission as a student by 

 any of the societies, he has no means, either by 

 appeal to the judges or otherwise, of bringing 

 under revision the propriety of the rejection ; (so | 

 decided in the case of The King v. Lincoln's Inn, | 

 before referred to, which is in accordance with the 

 state of the practice) ; and a certificate of the re- 

 jection is transmitted to all the other societies. 



" When any of the societies refuse to call a per- 

 son to the bar, the benchers will hear him person- 

 ally or by counsel, and allow him to give evidence 

 to rebut the charges made against him ; and if he 

 be dissatisfied with their decision, he may appeal 

 to the judges. On such appeal, the benchers 

 send to the judges a certificate stating the reasons 

 of their refusal to call such person to the bar." 



The education of those who intend to practise 

 in the ecclesiastical courts and courts of admiralty, 

 is quite different from that requisite for the attor- 

 ney, solicitor or barrister. 



In order to entitle a person to be admitted as a 

 proctor, it is required that he shall have served a | 

 clerkship of seven years under articles with one of j 

 the senior proctors, who must be at least of five 

 years standing. And before he is permitted to be 

 articled he must produce a certificate of his having 

 made reasonable progress in classical education. 

 When the term of seven years is completed, the 

 party is admitted a notary by a faculty from the j 

 archbishop of Canterbury. A petition is then pre- 

 sented to his Grace, signed by three advocates and 

 three proctors, that the party applying to be ad- 

 mitted has served as articled clerk to a proctor of 

 the court for the full term of seven years. If this 

 certificate be approved, the archbishop issues his 

 Fiat; arid a commission is directed to the dean of 

 the arches, by whom the party is admitted under 



the title of a supernumerary with ceremonies simi- 

 lar to those observed on the admission of an advo- 

 cate. 



No person can be admitted to practice as an ad- 

 vocate in the courts of admiralty or ecclesiastical 

 courts, who has not taken the degree of doctor of 

 laws at one of the English universities. This we 

 believe requires at least three years study of the 

 civil and canon law. A candidate for admission 

 as an advocate is required to deliver into the office 

 of the vicar general of the province of Canterbury a 

 certificate of his having taken the degree of doctor of 

 laws, signed by the registrar of the university to which 

 he belongs. A petition, praying that, in considera- 

 tion of such qualifications the candidate may be 

 admitted, is presented to the archbishop, who issues 

 his fiat for the admission of the applicant directed 

 to the vicar general, who thereupon issues a re- 

 script or commission to be prepared, and addressed 

 to the dean of the arches, empowering and requir- 

 ing him to admit the candidate as an advocate of 

 that court. To this a proviso is always added that 

 the person to be admitted shall not practise for one 

 whole year from the date of this commission, in 

 order that by attending during that interval he may 

 acquire a competent knowledge of the forms of 

 proceeding in these courts. The candidate is in- 

 troduced by two advocates, and presented to ihe 

 dean of the arches, who, after the archbishop's re- 

 script is read and the candidate has taken the oaths-, 

 admits him as an advocate of the court. The ad- 

 vocate is afterwards admitted in a similar manner 

 in the court of admiralty. 



Having spoken of the Inns of Court and of Doc- 

 tors' Commons, it may perhaps, as a matter of curi- 

 osity, be interesting to our readers to give a suc- 

 cinct account of them. The buildings called 

 Doctors' Commons are near St Paul's cathedral. 

 The ecclesiastical laws, as now existing, have been 

 for upwards of three centuries administered in the 

 principal courts, by the body of men before re- 

 ferred to, as a distinct profession for the practice of 

 the civil and canon laws; some of the members of 

 which body, in the year 1567, purchased the site 

 on which Doctors' Commons now stands, for the 

 residence of the judges and advocates, and proper 

 buildings for holding the ecclesiastical and admir- 

 alty courts, where they have ever since continued 

 to be held. In the year 1768, a royal charter was 

 obtained, by virtue of which the then members of 

 the society and their successors were incorporated 

 under the name and title of " The College of 

 Doctors of Law exercent in the Ecclesiastical and 

 Admiralty Courts." This college consists of a 

 president (the dean of the arches for the time 

 being) and those doctors of law, who, having regu- 

 larly taken that degree in either of the universities 

 of Oxford or Cambridge, and having been admitted 

 advocates in pursuance of the rescript of the arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, shall have been elected fel- 

 lows of the colleges in the manner prescribed by 

 the charter. The judges, advocates and proctois 

 have their offices of business and places of resi- 

 dence at Doctors' Commons. 



As to the Inns of Court, they are of so very 

 great antiquity that their origin is now involved in 

 some doubt. It has been generally supposed that 

 they originated in a struggle between the church, 

 governed by and cultivating the study of the civil 

 and canon law, and the nobility, gentry, and others, 

 anxious to maintain and cultivate the profession of 

 the English common law. When the court of 



