LEGAL EDUCATION. The subject of this article is education in English and United States law; i.e., the law as ad ministered in English and United States courts of justice.
Early Usage.—It is noteworthy, though when the causes are understood it is not surprising, that until about the middle of the last century legal education was not academic but vocational. It was not offered to or demanded by students who were not pro posing to qualify for the practice of the law. The universities taught the canon law and the civil law. The first teacher of the civil law seems to have been Vacarius who was introduced into England in Stephen's reign by Archbishop Theobald and accord ing to Gervase of Canterbury taught at Oxford. From this period the universities taught the canon law and the civil law and gave de grees as bachelor and doctor in both subjects. Moreover for a degree in each subject the student had to show knowledge of the other; indeed at Oxford for the degree in the canon law the bachelor had to go through a five years' course in the civil law. After the Reformation teaching of the canon law was dis couraged and practically ceased; though, as some compensation, in 1548 Henry VIII. founded the regius professorships of civil law at Oxford and Cambridge. It is noteworthy that in the ecclesiastical courts and in the courts administering the civil law practice was confined to persons who were proficient in civil law. The association of doctors of law, which eventually had its seat at Doctors' Commons, was founded in 1511.
To be admitted an advocate the applicant had to hold a degree as doctor of civil law, must have attended the ecclesiastical courts for a year, and must possess the fiat of the archbishop of Canterbury. The advocates had the monopoly of practice in the ecclesiastical courts and in the admiralty court, the judges of the courts being drawn from their ranks. While the courts existed they practised in the Star Chamber, and in the courts of the con stable and marshal. In this way there can be no doubt that the university teaching in canon and civil law influenced the develop ment of English law.
But the universities did not, until a comparatively recent date, purport to teach English law as such. In fact, in the middle ages
it can hardly be said that there was an English law that a uni versity could teach. Principles had not developed ; the substantive law was being generated in the interstices of procedure ; the prospective lawyer had to master rules and enactments mainly concerned with real property and crime, disentangling tort from crime. To understand the law at all he had to master a language not his own. It is not surprising therefore that legal education was confined to those institutions founded by practising lawyers, which secured the sole power of regulating under the judges the entry to the profession, i.e., the inns of court and of chancery.
The Inns of Court and of Chancery.—Here an elaborate system of training was developed. Teachers were appointed from practising members of the profession ; they gave readings on legal subjects, often on particular statutes. Discussion took place between students and readers on the subject of lectures, and an organized system of moots, at which the younger barristers and students discussed a set question before their elders in hall, formed an important part of the training. The course for a student appears to have approximated to the traditional 7 years' ap prenticeship, nor was he admitted to practise until he had taken part in such a course, though a test by examination had not then been devised. The system reached its zenith in the time of Henry VIII. We derive our detailed knowledge of it from a report made to that king in 1540 by commissioners who included Nicholas Bacon.
But this highly organized system of oral instruction broke down. Printed books began to record the rules of law and the decisions of the courts. The position of reader was encumbered with the heavy expenses of an elaborate feast ; a sumptuary rule of one of the inns of court limited the charge to as much as £300. The cost and the interference with practice made lawyers disinclined to undertake the duty. The days of the Commonwealth interrupted the collegiate system of the inns and though attempts were made after the Restoration by the judges and the benchers to restore the system, they failed.