I learned this today. The first lawyers appeared in the Roman Empire in the time of Emperor Claudius who ruled from AD 41 to 54.
In ancient time there was no such thing as lawyers. The law was discharged by the king, chief, or head of the group of people. As leaders became more powerful, they started to delegate more of the legal work to other important members of their household. These people would become judges. The people being judged would usually have no cause to a defense.
In Ancient Greece, there were people who behaved as lawyers, but they were not allowed to call themselves professionals. In Athens, if someone was in trouble with the law, they were supposed to defend themselves. Not everyone had the skill to do that, so they were allowed to call on a “friend”. These “friends” were generally people who were trained as orators and were good at arguing. The law of Athens at the time forbade anyone from taking a fee to plead the case of another person. This meant that these orators were not allowed to sell their services and were not allowed to present themselves as professionals. This meant they could never truly be lawyers.
The Emperor Claudius removed the ban on fees during his reign from AD 41 to 54 and the orators of Rome were able to become the first lawyers. Two groups appeared. Advocates and juriconsults. The advocates were experts in rhetoric but not the law. They could be paid, but their fees were low. Juriconsults were wealthy people who enjoyed the law and liked to think about legal problems as a hobby. They knew a lot about the law.
Over the next few centuries, the legal profession started to change. The number of laws in Roman society increased and the number of advocates increased. They had to be regulated. Controls on lawyers were introduced. Advocates in the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) had limits on how much they could charge, could only be attached to a single court, and they had to be enrolled in a bar.
As an aside: The word “bar” comes from England in the 16th century. A railing (bar) divided the Inns of Court. Students would be on one side and qualified lawyers would be on the other. When a student qualified as a lawyer, they would cross the bar to be on the other side.
By 380 AD, students had to study law as well as the skill of rhetoric. The number of juriconsults shrank rapidly after this change. By 460, advocates had to produce references from their teachers before they could practice and by the 6th century, students had to study for four years before they could become advocates.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the legal profession in Europe collapsed with it. Laws and administration in Europe were heavily based on and dependent on the Romans. When their empire fell, the church became responsible for the law and the only real lawyers were people who specialized in canon law. The church started to expand its influence into other areas of law, such as family law and inheritance.
In the 12th century, learning became far more important. The first European universities were established at about this time. People became interested in the law again and the study of Roman law picked up. These Roman laws spread across Europe, changing slightly for each country. However, pretty much without exception, each country had four main parts to their legal profession. There were the procurators who looked after the administrative part of litigation. There were the advocates who were usually university graduates that were trained in oral arguments (rhetoric is still important), who would give advice to clients. Then there were the notaries who wrote out wills and other documents. Then there were the university law teachers who were the experts in the law. We can still see the ancient Roman system of advocates and juriconsults here.
When the Normans conquered Britain, their legal system went with them and was adopted by the inhabitants. The number of laws starts to increase in Britain and the legal profession grows with it. Lawyers abound, but they are still called advocates.
The word “lawyer” comes from the 14th century, and it was originally lawyere. This in turn comes from the Old Norse word lagu that meant to lay or to fix. This stayed as lagu in Old English but had become law or lagh or lawe by the time of Middle English, by about 1150. It meant to fix something down or to set something. In the 14th century, a practitioner of law was called a “man-of-law”. At some point, this became lawyer. This is speculation but it may have come from the suffix “er”. In the time of Middle English, law may still have been a verb. Adding “er” to the end of it to make the person who does the verb would not have been that strange. Then the “y” was added to make it easier to pronounce.
So, the first lawyers appeared in the early Roman Empire, but they have gone through a lot of changes since. And this is what I learned today.
Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/law-book-in-a-podium-8730785/
Sources:
https://www.smokeball.com/blog/brief-guide-to-the-history-of-lawyers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_association
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_legal_profession
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/law
https://www.britannica.com/topic/legal-profession