A Discourse on the Study of the Law

Blackstone emphasised the advantages of a civilian legal education over the training for a call to the Bar, arguing for the inherent dignity of study at a university.

[2] He was particularly alarmed by the growing practice of sending a potential lawyer to work in an attorney's office, saying that: for (as few persons of birth, or fortune, or even of scholastic education, will submit to the drudgery or servitude and the manual labour of copying the trash of an office) should this infatuation prevail to any considerable degree, we must rarely expect to see a gentleman of distinction or learning at the bar.

And what the consequence may be, to have the interpretation and enforcement of the laws (which include the entire disposal of our properties, liberties, and lives) fall wholly into the hands of obscure or illiterate men, is a matter of very public concern.

[2] Described as a "sensible, spirited and manly exhortation to the study of the law", the initial print run of the Discourse sold out, necessitating the publication of another 1,000 copies.

[6] Paul Lucas, writing in the English Historical Review, notes that unlike his other works, Blackstone's Discourse survived its various editions with no modifications whatsoever, showing that he considered it "a key statement of his opinions".