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Published as Chapter 3 in The Cambridge History of Law in America, Volume II, The Long Nineteenth Century (1789–1920), Michael Grossberg & Christopher Tomlins, eds.
The American legal profession matured and came to prominence during the century prior to the Civil War. Before the Revolution, across some 150 years, lawyers in different colonies underwent different experiences at different times. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, more lawyers were entering professional life. After the revolution and the defection by the Tory lawyers, the remaining quickly burnished their images in the glow of republican ideals while grasping new market opportunities. For most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the overwhelming majority of American lawyers were trained by other lawyers. Reading law was thought of as a practical education, where acquiring the principles of the mysterious science was left to chance. However, over the course of the nineteenth century, lawyers, in conjunction with courts, gradually lost whatever control they had over admission standards and practices. The realities of legal practice were one of the factors that determined the place of lawyers in American society.
Rights
Publication Date
1-1-2008
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
New York
ISBN
9780521803069
First Page
68
Last Page
105
Disciplines
Law | Legal History | Legal Profession
Required Text
This material has been published in The Cambridge History of Law in America edited by Michael Grossberg & Christopher Tomlins. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. ©Cambridge University Press 2008.
Recommended Citation
Alfred S. Konefsky, The Legal Profession: From the Revolution to the Civil War in The Cambridge History of Law in America 68 (Michael Grossberg & Christopher Tomlins, eds., Cambridge University Press 2008)