ATTORNIES at law, are such persons as take upon them the business of other men, bywhonf they are retained. By the 2 Geo: II. cap. 23. s. 5, no person shall be permitted to act as an attorney, or to sue out any process in the name of any other person in any courts of law, unless such person shall have been bound, by contract in writing, to serve as a clerk for five years to an attorney, duly sworn and ad mitted in some of the said courts; and such person, during the said term of five years, shall have continued in such ser vice ; and unless such person, after the expiration of the said five years, shall be examined, sworn, admitted, and inrolled. And for every piece of vellum, parch ment, or paper, upon which shall be writ ten any such contract, whereby any per son shall become bound to serve as a clerk aforesaid, in order to his admission as solicitor or attorney, in any of the courts at Westminster, there shall be charged a stamp duty of 100/. 34 Geo. III. c. 14. And in order to his admission as a solicitor or attorney in any of the great courts of sessions in Wales, or in the counties palatine of Chester, Lancas ter, or Durham, or in any court of record in England, holding pleas to the amount of 40 shillings, and not in any of the said courts in Westminster, there shall be charged a stamp duty of 50/. Every at
torney, solicitor, notary, proctor, agent, or procurator, practising in any of the courts at Westminster, ecclesiastical, ad miralty, or Cinque-port courts, in his Majesty's courts in Scotland, the great sessions in Wales, the courts in the coun ties Palatine, or any other courts holding pleas to the amount of 40 shillings, or more, shall take out a certificate annually, upon which there shall be charged, if the solicitor, &c. reside within the bills of mortality, a stamp duty of 51. in any other part of Great Britain 3/. Persons practising after the 1st day of November, 1797, without obtaining a certificate, shall forfeit 501. and be incapable of suing for any fees. An attorney shall not be elect ed into any office against his will, such as constable, overseer of the poor, or churchwarden, or any office within a bo rough : but his privilege will not exempt him from serving in the militia, or finding a substitute. Black. Rep. 1123.