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applications. Although there are other ways of defining the profession, this simple
definition may be best, despite the fact that in some countries there are several
professions and even some occupations (e.g., police service) that require such
expertise but that may not regarded as within the “legal profession.”
History
Distinct legal systems emerged relatively early in history, but legal professions of size
and importance are relatively modern. There is not the slightest trace in ancient times
of a distinct legal profession in the modern sense. The earliest known legal specialist
was the judge, and he was only a part-time specialist. The chief, prince, or king of
small societies discharged the judicial function as part of the general role of political
leader. As his power spread, he delegated the function, though not to legal specialists;
in the secular stages of the early systems, legal duties were taken over by royal
officials who were “generalists.” In the wake of powerful religious or quasi-religious
movements, priests or wise men often judged or advised the judges. It may be that in
some of these cases specialized legal aid to the ordinary citizen did exist, but at levels
of social status below the notice of chroniclers or tomb inscriptions and perhaps
without benefit of official approval.
Classical beginnings
A distinct class of legal specialists other than judges first emerged in Greco-
Roman civilization, and, as with the law itself, the main contribution was from Rome
in the period from 200 BCE to 600 CE. In the early stages of both Greece and Rome, as
later among the German tribes who overran the Roman Empire, there was
a prejudice against the idea of specialists in law being generally available for a fee.
The assumption was that the citizen knew the customary law and would apply it in
transactions or in litigation personally with advice from kinsmen. As the law became
more complex, men prominent in public life—usually patricians—found it necessary
to acquire legal knowledge, and some acquired reputations as experts. Often they
spent periods serving as magistrates and in Rome as priests of the official religion,
having special powers in matters of family law. Among the German tribes, noble
experts were allowed to assist in litigation, not in a partisan fashion but as interpreters
(Vorsprecher) for those who wished to present a case but felt uncomfortable doing so
themselves. The peculiar system of development of early Roman law, by annual edict
and by the extension of trial formulas, gave the Roman patrician legal expert an
influential position. He became the jurisconsult, the first nonofficial lawyer to be
regarded with social approbation, but he owed this partly to the fact that he did not
attempt to act as an advocate at trial—a function left to the separate class of orators—
and was prohibited from receiving fees.
The modern legal professional, earning his living by fee-paid legal services, first
became clearly visible in the late Roman Empire, when the fiction that a jurisconsult
received only gifts was abandoned and when at the same time the permissible fees
were regulated. Changes in the methods of trial and other legal developments caused
the jurisconsult to disappear in time. The orator, who now was required to obtain legal
training, became the advocate. A subordinate legal agent of the classical system,
the procurator, who attended to the formal aspects of litigation, took on added
importance because later imperial legal procedure depended largely on written
documents that the procurators produced. The jurisconsults had been important as
teachers and writers on law; with their decline this function passed to government-
conducted law schools at Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus (now Beirut) and to
their salaried professors. There was also a humbler class of paid legal documentary
experts, the tabelliones, who were useful in nonlitigious transactions.
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Medieval Europe
This late Roman pattern of legal organization profoundly influenced the Europe that
began to arise from 1000 CE after the barbarian invasions; even during the invasions
the methods of Roman imperial administration never ceased to be used in some parts
of southern France and in central Italy. The Christian church, which became the
official Roman imperial church after 381 CE, developed its own canon law, courts,
and practitioners and followed the general outline of later Roman legal organization.
Because of its success among the invaders, the church was in a position to establish
its jurisdiction in many matters of family law and inheritance. Hence, both the idea of
a legal profession and the method of its operation retained sufficient force to offset
Germanic and feudal objections to legal representation. After the revival of learning in
the 12th century, in particular the renewed study of Roman law at Bologna, the
influence of the late Roman professional system was greatly strengthened.
From then on, every country in continental Europe acquired, by various stages and
with numerous local variations, a legal profession in which four
main constituents could be observed. Procurators attended to the formal and especially
the documentary steps in litigation. Advocates, who usually were university graduates
in Romanist learning, gave direct advice to clients and to procurators and presented
oral arguments in court. Among a miscellany of legal scribes, the notaries acquired
importance because, in addition to being drafting experts, they also authenticated
documents and maintained archives. University teachers of law took over the main
task of explaining and adapting the mixture of Roman law and Germanic custom that
produced the modern laws of the major European countries and continued to dominate
in the scholarly interpretation of the law even after the 19th-century codifications. The
relative importance of these classes varied enormously from place to place and from
century to century. At times the teaching doctors almost supplanted the advocates; in
some courts the procurators swallowed up the advocates, and in others the converse
occurred; only the notaries managed to survive with little change.