History of the American legal profession
The history of the American legal profession covers the work, training, and professional activities of lawyers from the colonial era to the present.
By the 21st century, over one million practitioners in the United States held law degrees, and many others served the legal system as justices of the peace, paralegals, marshals, and other aides.
By 1700, both judges and judicial procedures had become much more formal; to win a case, a client needed a lawyer to handle the arguments, cite the precedents, and neutralize the opposing counsel.
While England still kept an elaborate hierarchy of judges, barristers and solicitors with formal qualifications, colonial lawyers were '"jacks of all trades" who learned their skills by apprenticeship and by closely watching court procedures.
They were highly flexible and had the time and opportunity to hold local offices in the public service, most of which paid poorly, but some of which were quite generous.
Lawyers were now professionally trained, and conversant in an extremely complex language that combined highly specific legal terms and motions with a dose of Law Latin.
"[8] Lawyers of this period tried to raise their professional standards by forming local bar associations, but had little success in the colonial era.
[9] Many British governors were upper class aristocrats appointed into their positions not trained in the law and felt unduly constrained by the legalistic demands of colonial lawyers.
[10] Colonial lawyers attempted to strike back by use of an important technique that developed in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City in the 1720s and 1730s.
Lawyers were able to mobilize public opinion by using the new availability of weekly newspapers and print shops that produced inexpensive pamphlets to disseminate ideas about legal rights in the U.S. as Englishmen.
[12] The lawyers of colonial New York organized a bar association in 1768 during the bitter political dispute between factions from the De Lancey and Livingston families.
In most of the 13 colonies, a prominent faction of the legal profession were the Loyalists, as their clients were often tied to royal authority or British merchants and financiers.
[23] Local bar associations before 1870 were akin to social groups, which took little or no responsibility for maintaining the quality of admissions or performance by the membership.
In 1870, leading lawyers in Manhattan organized the "Association of the Bar of the City of New York" to battle the notorious political corruption of the Tweed machine.
[25] The sudden acquisition of the Mexican Cession in 1848 followed by a massive Gold Rush into the state caused a hurried transition to California statehood in 1850.
[28] Due to the lack of an established legal system in many communities, vigilantes took justice into their own hands, often in the form of drum-head trials, whipping, banishment, or hanging.
[32] The American phrase "white-shoe" derives from white bucks (or derby shoes) worn by many Ivy League college students.
White shoe firms emerged in the late 19th century and were usually based in the Northeastern United States, which grew and evolved into what is known as BigLaw.
Large firms were especially in demand by major railroads, which were built through complicated consolidations and faced complex legal situations in multiple states.
As corporations grew larger and developed more rigid structures, they spread over too many legal jurisdictions for local, small firms to service.
[34] Key operational characteristics of biglaw firms remained the same as those developed by Paul Cravath, who made a reputation from handling complex lawsuits for the emerging electrical industry.
She was the only female lawyer in lightly populated Chester County until the shortages of men in World War II allowed for more opportunities for women.
[42][43] In the first half of the 19th century, Mexico established a judicial system for its northernmost districts, in the present-day Southwestern United States.
Instead, there were numerous legal roles such as notario, escribano, asesor, auditor de Guerra, justicia mayor, procurador, and juez receptor.
With the annexation by the United States in 1848, Congress established an entirely new territorial legal system, implementing U.S. laws, forms, and procedures.
A vast majority of lawyers and judges were new arrivals from the United States, as there was no place in the new system for the original Mexican roles.
In the late 1950s, Disney turned Baca into the first Hispanic popular culture hero in the United States, through depictions in various television shows, six comic books, a feature film, and related merchandising.
[55] In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a woman of Puerto Rican origin, to the Supreme Court.
The combined effects of a global pandemic, a serious economic downturn, social activism, and political uncertainty in the United States and elsewhere clearly make 2020 a year for the record books.
It was a year in which law firms experienced unprecedented disruptions in their operations and were forced to adapt rapidly to dramatic market changes.
