BARRISTER. The etymology of this word has been variously given by dif ferent authors, and it would be unprofitable to enumerate the fanciful derivations which have been assigned to it. In French the word barreau, which signifies a bar of wood or iron, is also used to sig nify " a place in the audience where the advocates plead, and which is closed to prevent the press of people." (Richelet, Diction.) From the word bar then it is obvious that such a term as barrister may be formed. But in England it is said that the term barrister arose from the arrangement of the halls of the different Inns of Court, which, for several cen turies, have composed in England a kind of university for the education of advo OF CounT.] The benchers and ers, being the superiors of each house, occupied on public occasions of assembly the upper end of the hall, which was raised on a dais, and separated from the rest of the building by a bar. The next in degree were the utter barristers, who, after they had attained a certain standing, were milled from the body of the hall to the bar (t. e. to the first place outside the bar), for the purpose of taking a principal part in the mootings or ex ercises of the house; and hence they pro bably derived the name of utter or outer barristers. The other members of the Inn, consisting of students of the law under the degree of utter barristers, took their places nearer to the centre of the hall and farther from the bar, and from this manner of distribution appear to have been called inner barristers. The dis tinction between utter and inner barristers is at the present day wholly abolished, the former being called barristers gene rally, and the latter falling under the denomination of students.
The degree of utter barrister, though it gave rank and precedence in the Inn of Court, and placed the individual in a class from which advocates were always taken, did not originally communicate any authority to plead in courts of justice. In the old reports of the proceedings of courts, the term is wholly unknown ; ser jeants and apprentices at law, who are supposed by Dugdale to be the same per sons,* being the only pleaders or advo cates mentioned in the earlier year-books.
In the time of Stow, however, who wrote in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, it is clear that utter barristers were entitled to act as advocates, as he expressly says that persons called to that degree are " so enabled to be common councellors, and to practice the law both in their chambers and at the barrel." The exact course of legal education pursued at the Inns of Court before the Commonwealth is ex tremely uncertain, but it appears to have consisted almost entirely of the exercises called readings and meetings, which have been described by several old writers.
The readings in the superior or larger houses were thus conducted :— The henchers annually chose from their own body two readers, whose duty it was to read openly to the society in their public hall, at least twice in the year. On these occasions, which were observed with great solemnity, the reader selected some statute which he made the subject of formal examination and discussion. He first recited the doubts and questions which had arisen, or which might by possibility arise, upon the several clauses of the statute, and then briefly declared his own judgment upon them. The ques tions thus stated were then debated by the utter barristers present with the reader, after which the judges and ser jeants, several of whom were usually pre sent, pronounced their opinions separately upon the points which had been raised. Readings of this kind were often pub lished, and it is to this practice of the Inns of Court that we are indebted for some of the most profound juridical argu ments in our language, such as Callus's reading on the Statute of Sewers, and Lord Bacon's on the Statute of Uses.
The process of mooting in the Inns of Court differed considerably from reading, though the general object of both was the same. On these occasions, the reader of the Inn for the time being, with two or more benchers, presided in the open hall. On each side of the bench table were two inner barristers, who declared in law French some kind of action, previously devised by them, and which always con tained some nice and doubtful points of law, the one stating the case for the plaint4 and the other the case for the defendant. The points of law arising In this fictitious case were then argued by two utter barristers, after which the reader and the benchers closed the pro oeedings by declaring their opinions sepa rately. These exercises appear to have lost much of their utility in the time of Lord Coke, who, in the ' First Institute,' p. 280 a, praises the ancient readings, but says that the modern performances were of no authority. Roger North says that Lord Keeper Guilford was one of the last persons who read in the Temple ac cording to the ancient spirit of the insti tution. It is, however, beyond all doubt, that, as far back as we have any distinct memorials, all advocates must have through the mode of preparation adopted in the Inns of Court.