The history of the lawyers

Ever since Socrates received the death penalty in Greece, 400 years before the common era, and most likely long before then, people have been complaining and relying on lawyers.

In fact, Socrates himself held the law in such high esteem that when given the opportunity to go into exile rather than carry out the sentence (which was suicide) he went ahead and served the sentence rather than dishonor the law by avoiding it.

In reality, law itself is not as simple a practical discipline as people tend to think. It is more in the nature of a philosophy, dealing with the more abstract concepts such as justice, right and wrong, fairness, guilt and innocence, human rights, and the responsibility of citizens to one another. It is the way in which these principles are practically applied to individual situations that takes the study and practice of law from the abstract to the concrete.

These are just some of the specialty areas in the legal profession today:

loans and mortgages

Refinancing

loan consolidation

Taxes

Criminal Defense or Prosecution

personal injuries

Domain Name Registration

Wrongful Death Lawsuits

insurance settlements

medical claims

malpractice suits

Bankruptcy

Divorce

prenuptial agreements

Asbestos or mesothelioma claims

Trademarks

Copyright

patents

wills

inheritance disputes

custody agreements

product liability

business contracts

This partial list demonstrates how completely every aspect of our society is affected by the legal system and lawyers, also called barristers, are the backbone of the system in both advocating for clients and advising them. The job of lawyers is not to write the laws, but to apply them to particular circumstances.

The profession developed slowly, and in the mid-16th century, two distinct types of barristers appeared in England, actually creating two branches of the profession, which still function today: barristers and solicitors. A barrister is roughly equivalent to a trial lawyer and although a barrister may appear in lower court, he or she primarily advises clients and prepares cases for lawyers to present in higher courts. But there was a natural conflict built into their class system. For one thing, only people from the upper classes could afford to be educated well enough to practice law, but members of those classes were thought to be beneath the practice of practicing law. One should, in those days, have enough inherited income or property income to have a secure livelihood without having a profession.

In the American colonies there was no such prejudice. It was considered desirable for children to grow up with the idea of ​​obtaining an income other than that provided by the land, and the law, with its need for higher education, was a more respectable profession than many. Americans expected to have rights, to have those rights protected by law, and to have those protections upheld by local courts. While they often went to England for legal education, they did not intend for English courts to administer American justice. In fact, it was the principles of English law and the fact that the law was not administered fairly in the American colonies that led to the desire for independence from the crown. Nearly a quarter of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had studied law in England.

Most attorneys have a specialization based on their own particular skills and preferences. Trial attorneys, although they must prepare very carefully in advance, must be comfortable “thinking on their feet” and speaking extemporaneously in public. Trial work, which can be done by any lawyer, is especially suited to people with those skills and a taste for playing what amounts to a game of strategy, sometimes with the clients’ property, liberty, or even lives at stake.

Even within legal specialties there is flexibility. For example, an attorney who has a reputation for being particularly well-versed in environmental law may take cases on the side of corporations accused of polluting or a group of citizens trying to sue such corporations for damages.

Mesothelioma, for example, is a lung disease usually caused by asbestos exposure, which may have occurred in a work situation. When asbestos was first used, this danger was not known. Also, another complication is caused by the fact that it can take up to twenty or thirty years after exposure for the disease to appear in a person. Therefore, an entire subspecialty in law has sprung up around cases where people with this disease are suing companies for health care payments or compensation for pain and suffering. Questions about whether a company knew of the danger when it hired people for these jobs and whether the people were aware of the risks they were taking are litigation factors.

Some attorneys specialize in car accidents, on behalf of injured people, on behalf of people accused of causing accidents, or on behalf of insurance companies. Some specialize in medical malpractice, either on behalf of patients or physicians.

Those who specialize in criminal court law, whether as prosecutors or defense attorneys, are sometimes considered the “stars” of the legal system, as they are often the most visible in terms of media coverage.

Whatever their specialty, if they plan to have one, every attorney must go through many years of education and training before becoming licensed. In most states, this means that after earning a college degree, a person must graduate from a law school, which has been accredited by the American Bar Association. They must then take and pass a bar exam. In some states it is possible to take the bar exam after some kind of apprenticeship in a law office. This method was the one used universally before accredited law schools came into being.

Due to the fact that lawyers are sometimes called in to defend unpopular clients, they have sometimes been the butt of jokes at their expense. But since it is almost impossible for one person to find their way through any legal entanglement on their own, there is no doubt that the legal profession will play a prominent role in our society for the foreseeable future.