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Inns of Court

 
Dictionary: Inns of Court   (ĭnz)
pl.n.
  1. The four legal societies in England founded about the beginning of the 14th century and having the exclusive right to confer the title of barrister on law students.
  2. The buildings housing the Inns of Court.

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Four societies of British students and practitioners of law that have the exclusive right to admit people to practice. The four are Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple, and Middle Temple. All are located in London and trace their origins to the Middle Ages. Until the 17th century, when the Inn of Chancery developed (for training in the framing of writs and other legal documents used in the courts of chancery, or equity courts), the Inns of Court had a monopoly over legal education. By the 19th century, modern law schools had emerged.

For more information on Inns of Court, visit Britannica.com.

British History: Inns of Court
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Legal institutions of medieval origin situated in London and responsible for the education of barristers. They were first used as accommodation and were a cross between the college, the club, and the trade union. Originally around 20 Inns were known to have existed of which only four survive: Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn, and Lincoln's Inn. In the 15th cent. the Inns gradually assumed responsibility for the education of students and today anyone wishing to become a barrister must first join one of the Inns. When students are considered qualified for the profession they are ‘called’ to the bar by their Inn and entitled to practise in the higher courts of law.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Inns of Court
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Inns of Court, collective name of the four legal societies in London that have the exclusive right of admission to the bar. These societies-Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple (see also Temple, the)-date from before the 14th cent. They take their name from the buildings where originally schools of law were held, apprentice lawyers gathering to learn from masters of law, much as in guild training. Today the societies are more like clubs, although they still control admission to the bar. The Inns of Chancery were lesser societies (preparatory colleges for law), dependent on the Inns of Court; their importance declined in the 18th cent., and they disappeared in the 19th cent.

Bibliography

See W. B. Prest, The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts, 1590-1640 (1972).


Law Encyclopedia: Inns of Court
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This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

Organizations that provide preparatory education for English law students in order to teach them to practice in court.

Inns of Court were founded in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Membership in an inn is tantamount to membership in an integrated bar association in the United States. Inns of Court have a common council of legal education, which gives lectures and holds examinations. Currently, inns have the exclusive authority to confer the degree of barrister-at-law, a prerequisite to practice as an advocate or counsel in the superior courts in England.

Wikipedia: Inns of Court
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Combined arms of the four Inns of Court. Clockwise from top left: Lincoln's Inn, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple.

The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations to one of which every barrister in England and Wales (and those judges who were formerly barristers) must belong.[1] They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional accommodation. Each also has a church or chapel attached to it and is a self-contained precinct where barristers traditionally train and practise, although growth in the legal profession, together with a desire to practise from more modern accommodation[citation needed] caused many barristers' chambers to move outside the precincts of the Inns of Court in the late 20th century.

Contents

History and composition

Several centuries ago the Inns of Court were any of a sizable number of buildings or precincts where barristers traditionally lodged, trained and carried on their profession.

Over the centuries the number of active Inns of Court was reduced to the present four:

Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records to 1422[citation needed] (i.e. beyond those of the other three[clarification needed]); however, by tradition, none of the Inns claims to be the oldest of the four.

The Inns are near the western boundary of the City of London; nearby are the Royal Courts of Justice (opened in 1882; previously sat in Westminster Hall), which were placed in the legal quarter of London for convenience. Each inn is a substantial complex with a great hall, chapel, libraries, sets of chambers for many hundreds of barristers, and gardens, and covers several acres. The layout is similar to that of an "Oxbridge" college. The "chambers" were originally used as residences as well as business premises by many of the barristers, but today, with a small number of exceptions, they serve as offices only.

Membership and governance

Each of the four Inns of Court has three ordinary grades of membership: students, barristers, and Masters of the Bench or "benchers". The benchers constitute the governing body for each Inn and appoint new members from among existing barrister members. As a rule, any barrister member of the Inn is eligible for appointment. In practice, appointments are made to those who become judges or who carry out work on behalf of the Inn, be it on committees or through the training of students and other junior members.

Barristers may choose which Inn to join, but can only apply to one Inn for scholarships. Scholarship amounts are similar across the Inns. Barristers may choose a particular Inn because they know someone already a member, or it has a student association at their university. It makes no long-term difference which Inn a barrister joins.

The senior bencher of each Inn is the Treasurer, a position which is held for one year only. Each Inn usually also has at least one Royal Bencher. They also appoint Additional Benchers, from academics, the world of politics and overseas judiciary.

The Inns of Court no longer provide all the education and training needed by prospective barristers, who must pass the Bar Vocational Course, but do provide supplementary education during the 'Bar School' year, pupillage and the early years of practice. All prospective Bar School students must be a member of one of the four Inns, and must attend twelve 'qualifying sessions' before being eligible to qualify as a barrister. Qualifying sessions traditionally comprise formal dinners followed by law-related talks, but increasingly the Inns offer training weekends that may count for several sessions' worth of attendance. The Inns still retain the sole right to call qualified students to the bar, a right currently found in section 27(3) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

Location

The four inns are close to one another in central London. Middle Temple and Inner Temple are liberties of the City of London, which means they are within the historic boundaries of the City but are not subject to its jurisdiction. They operate as their own local authorities. The closest tube station is Temple.

Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn are in the London Borough of Camden (formerly in the Borough of Holborn) near the boundary with the City of London. They do not have the status of local authority. The nearest tube station is Chancery Lane.

Other Inns

Another important inn, Serjeants' Inn, was dissolved in 1877 and its assets were, controversially, distributed amongst the existing members. The membership of the Inn had consisted of a small class of senior barristers called serjeants-at-law, who were selected from the members of the other four inns and had exclusive rights of audience in certain Courts. Their pre-eminence was affected by the new rank of Queen's Counsel, which was granted to barristers who were not serjeants. The serjeant's privileges were withdrawn by the government in the 19th century, no more serjeants were appointed, and they eventually died out. The area now known as Serjeants' Inn, one of two sites formerly occupied by the Serjeants, the other being in Chancery Lane, was purchased by the Inner Temple in 2002.

It was formerly the custom for senior judges to join Serjeants' Inn, thereby leaving the Inn in which they had practised as barristers. This meant that the Masters of the Bench of the four barristers' Inns of Court were mostly themselves barristers. Since there is now no Serjeants' Inn, judges remain in the Inns which they joined as students and belonged to as barristers. This has had the effect of making the majority of the Masters of the Bench senior judges, either because they become benchers when appointed as judges, or because they become judges after being appointed as benchers.

There were also minor Inns of Chancery, including Clement's Inn, Clifford's Inn and Lyon's Inn (attached to the Inner Temple); Strand Inn and New Inn (attached to the Middle Temple); Furnival's Inn and Thavie's Inn (attached to Lincoln's Inn); and Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn (attached to Gray's Inn). There were and are only four Inns of Court, which have a special and historic status including, for example, the authority to call members to the Bar and therefore confer on them rights of audience in the High Court. The other Inns (none of which continues to function), including the Inns of Chancery, were not Inns of Court.

There is also an Inn of Court of Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, there is only one Inn of Court, the Honorable Society of King's Inns.

In the United States

From the late 1970s, U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger led a movement to create Inns of Court in the United States. Although they are loosely modeled after the traditional English Inns, American Inns of Court do not include any real property. They are groups of judges, practicing attorneys, law professors and students who meet regularly to discuss and debate issues relating to legal ethics and professionalism. American Inn of Court meetings typically consist of a shared meal and a program presented by one of the Inn's pupillage teams. Chief Justice Burger and others established the American Inns of Court Foundation in 1985 to promote and charter Inns of Court across the United States.

The U.S. does not require attorneys to be a member of an Inn of Court, and many of the equivalent functions are performed by Bar Associations.

See also

References

  1. ^ Chris Roberts, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme, Thorndike Press,2006 (ISBN 0-7862-8517-6)

 
 

 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Inns of Court" Read more