Inns of Court
However, growth in the legal profession, together with a desire to practise from more modern accommodations and buildings with lower rents, caused many barristers' chambers to move outside the precincts of the Inns of Court in the late 20th century.
[7] In the 16th century and earlier, students or apprentices learned their craft primarily by attending court sessions and by sharing both accommodation and education during the legal terms.
[10] Prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, this training lasted at least seven years; subsequently, the Inns focused their residency requirements on dining together in the company of experienced barristers, to enable learning through contact and networking with experts.
[11][12] Plays written and performed in the Inns of Court include Gorboduc, Gismund of Salerne (1561), and The Misfortunes of Arthur (1588).
Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (c. 1594) and Twelfth Night (c. 1602) were also performed at the Inns, although written for commercial theatre.
Each of the four Inns of Court has three ordinary grades of membership: students, barristers, and masters of the bench or "benchers".
All prospective Bar School students must be a member of one of the four Inns, and must attend ten (formerly twelve)[a][14] 'qualifying sessions' before being eligible to qualify as a barrister.
The Inns still retain the sole right to call qualified students to the bar,[2][b] which is associated with a graduation ceremony ('Call Day').
Nearby are the Royal Courts of Justice, which were moved for convenience from Westminster Hall to the legal quarter of London in 1882.
Each Inn is a substantial complex with a great hall, chapel, libraries, sets of chambers for many hundreds of barristers, and gardens, and covers several acres.
The chambers were originally used as residences as well as business premises by many of the barristers, but today they serve as offices with only a small number of apartments.
Each local Inn is devoted to promoting professionalism, civility, ethics, and legal skills amongst the American bench and bar, in a collegial setting, through continuing education and mentoring.
They are groups of judges, practising attorneys, law professors and students who meet regularly (usually monthly) to discuss and debate issues relating to legal ethics and professionalism.
The U.S. does not require attorneys to be members of an Inn of Court, and many of the equivalent functions are performed by state bar associations.
Neither voluntary professional associations (including the American Inns of Court) nor mandatory bar associations typically have any role in training or licensing of law students that would be comparable to that function of the four English Inns of Court in selection and training of new barristers.
[20][21] An annual six-week exchange program, known as the Pegasus Scholarships, was created to provide for young English barristers to travel to the United States, and young American Inn of Court members to travel to London, to learn about the legal system of the other jurisdiction.
