SIX CLERKS. The office of Six Clerks was an office of great anti quity connected with the Court of Chancery, probably as ancient as the court itself. The number of the Six Clerks was limited to six as long ago as the 12th Rich. 11. The history of this office illustrates the mischief of attempting to regulate the supply of legal services to the client. It exhibits an instance of the principles of interference and monopoly destroying two al:measly° classes of officers, in spite of the strongest support which the law and the courts could give to them.
The Six Clerks were originally the only attorneys of the court. By the common law, any person who was impleaded in any of the courts of law was bound to appear in person, unless he obtained the king's warrant, or a writ from Chancery enabling him to appear by attorney, "by reason whereof," says Lord Coke (1 Inst.,' 128), "there were but few suits." There are many early statutes still in force enacted for the purpose of empowering the subject to appoint an attor ney. The earliest statute is that of Merton (au. 1235), whereby it is " provided and granted that every freeman which oweth snit to the county, tithing, hundred, and wapentake, or to the court of his lord, may freely make his attorney to do those suits for him." Subsequent Acts extended this privilege to other parties and other courts ; but to this day it would appear that, by the strict law of the land, except so far as it has fallen into deenetude, persons in good health, in pleas relating to money, are bound to appear in person. None of these statutes, however, extended to courts of equity ; but, as far as appears, every person who was desirous of relief, or compelled to defend him self in the Court of Chancery, was obliged to employ one of the Six Clerks as his representative.
In early times great exertions wore made to limit the number of attorneys who were allowed to practise in each court. The increase of litigation which accompanied the increase of property will looked on as an evil to be checked in every possible method ; and the method most relied on was that of limiting the number of legal practitioners. The well-known statute of 1455 (33 Hen. VI., c. 7, which is still in force) may be referred to as an instance. It recites a practice of contentious attorneys to stir up suits for their private profits, and enacts that there shall be but six common attorneys in Norfolk, six in Sufflk, and two in Norwich, to be elected and admitted by the chief-justice. As late AS the year 1616 a rule was made, " that the number of attorneys of each court be viewed, to have them drawn to a competent number in each court, and the superfluous number to be removed." These various regulations, so far as they were enforced, could only have been detrimental to the public ; and as regards the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, they seem not to have been long insisted on. As to the Exchequer, the principle of monopoly was continued in force down to the year 1830, until which time eighteen attorneys only were admitted to practise in it. As a consequence, that court was, before
the year 1830, scarcely at all resorted to. Since that time more actions are commenced in it than in any other court. In the year 1632 a new principle was introduced into the common-law courts, and all persons wishing to be attorneys were required to serve an attorney under articles for six years (since reduced to five). The Si; Clerks' Office, however, did not adopt this method until long after. They got over the difficulty by admitting under-clerks, afterwards called sworn clerks, to practise in their names, and they shared in some way or other the profits with them. In 1548 an inquisition was appointed, to inquire into the supposed exactions and abuses of the Court of Chancery, and the fees then payable for the business of this office. The presentment shows that all the fees payable for business done in this office were at that time payable to the Six Clerks ; and it contains no allusion whatever to the under-clerks as being in any way known as officers of the court. They seem at that time to have held a position with regard to the Six Clerks quite analogous 'to that which the solicitors for a long period were under with regard to the sworn clerks, and to have been the real persons who prosecuted the causes. They must have been numerous, as in 1596 an order was made limiting the number that each Six-Clerk should be allowed to have under him. Soon after this the Six Clerks, instead of taking clients according to the clients' choice, agreed to divide the business coming from time to time into court among themselves alphabetically. This arrangement shows that the scheme of a limited number of legalised attorneys for the Court of Chancery had now entirely ceased to operate, and had been converted into a mere legal pretext to enable these officers to tax all who were driven to such Chancery Court for justice. This regulation for dividing the business was, after some years, set aside on petition of the Master of the Rolls to the crown, as a monopoly and a breach of the liberty of the subject. In 1630 the office of Six-Clerk was, if not a sinecure, at least an appoint ment of great value. From a ridiculous story told about Sir Julius Caesar, the Master of the Rolls, in Clarendon's ' Rebellion,' it appears that the appointment at that time sold for so large a sum as 6000/. About this time the under or sworn clerks, or clerks in court (for all these names apply to them), began to be frequently mentioned in the orders regulating the court, and soon grew into a very important body. The under-clerks were the parties who knew the merits of the different causes, and were interested in getting the work done, so as to gain the fees from the clients. The Six Clerks had begun to sink into the lethargy of einecurista Many orders were made to spur them into activity, but all in vain.