TheInns of Court in London are the professional associations forbarristers inEngland and Wales. There are four Inns of Court:Gray's Inn,Lincoln's Inn,Inner Temple, andMiddle Temple.[1]
All barristers must belong to one of them.[2][3] They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional accommodation. Each also has a church or chapel attached to it and is a self-contained precinct where barristers traditionally train and practise. However, growth in thelegal profession, together with a desire to practise from more modern accommodations and buildings with lower rents, caused manybarristers' chambers to move outside the precincts of the Inns of Court in the late 20th century.
During the 12th and early 13th centuries, law was taught in theCity of London, primarily by the clergy. In 1219Pope Honorius III promulgatedSuper Specula, prohibiting the clergy from studying secular law as opposed tocanon law. As a result,English common law began to be practised and taught by laymen instead of clerics. To protect their schools from competition, firstHenry II (r. 1154–1189) and laterHenry III (r. 1216–1272) issued proclamations prohibiting the teaching of the civil law within the City of London. The common-law lawyers worked in guilds of law, modelled on tradeguilds, which in time became the Inns of Court.[4]
In the earliest centuries of their existence, beginning with the 14th century, the Inns were any of a sizeable number of buildings or precincts where lawyers traditionally lodged, trained and carried on their profession. Over the centuries, the four Inns of Court became where barristers were trained, while the more numerousInns of Chancery – which were initially affiliated to the Inns of Court[5] – became associated with the training ofsolicitors in theElizabethan era.[6]
The four Inns of Court are:
Lawyers have lived and worked in theTemple since 1320.[7] In 1337 the premises were divided into the Inner Temple, where the lawyers resided, and Middle Temple, which was also occupied by lawyers by 1346.[7] Lincoln's Inn, the largest, is able to trace its official records to 1422.[8] The records of Gray's Inn begin in 1569, but teaching is thought to have begun there in the late-fourteenth century.[9] In 1620 a meeting of senior judges decided that all four Inns would be equal inorder of precedence.[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 thelegal terms.[10] Prior to the outbreak of theEnglish 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.[10] In the mid-18th century thecommon law was first recognised as a subject for study in the universities, and by 1872bar examinations became compulsory for entry into the profession of law.[8][10]
The Inns played an important role in the history of theEnglish Renaissance theatre. Notable literary figures and playwrights who resided in the Inns of Court includedJohn Donne (1572-1631),Francis Beaumont (1584-1616),John Marston (1576-1634),Thomas Lodge (c. 1558-1625),Thomas Campion (1567-1620),Abraham Fraunce (c. 1559-c. 1593),Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586),Sir Thomas More (1478-1535),Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), andGeorge Gascoigne (c. 1535-1577).[11][12] Plays written and performed in the Inns of Court includeGorboduc,Gismund of Salerne (1561), andThe Misfortunes of Arthur (1588).[12] An example of a famousmasque put on by the Inns wasJames Shirley'sThe Triumph of Peace (1634).Shakespeare'sThe Comedy of Errors (c. 1594) andTwelfth Night (c. 1602) were also performed at the Inns, although written for commercial theatre.[11]
Since at least 1584, members of the Inns of Court have rallied to the defence of the realm during times of crisis. That tradition continues to the present, in that10 Stone Buildings in Lincoln's Inn has been the permanent home of theInns of Court & City Yeomanry since the building was freed up by the abolition of the Clerks of Chancery in 1842.[citation needed]
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Each of the four Inns of Court has three ordinary grades of membership: students, barristers, and masters of the bench or "benchers". The benchers constitute the governing body for each Inn and appoint new members from among existing barrister members. As a rule, any barrister member of the inn is eligible for appointment. In practice, appointments are made of senior members of the Bar, usuallyKCs, or High Court judges or those who carry out work on behalf of the Inn, be it on committees or through the training of students and other junior members.[13]
The senior bencher of each Inn is the Treasurer, a position which is held for one year only. Each Inn usually also has at least one royal bencher. They may also appoint honorary benchers, from academics, the world of politics and overseas judiciary.
The Inns of Court no longer provide all the education and training needed by prospective barristers, who must pass theBar Professional Training Course, but do provide supplementary education during the 'Bar School' year,pupillage and the early years of practice. 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. Qualifying sessions traditionally comprise formal dinners followed by law-related talks, but increasingly the inns offer training weekends that may count for several sessions' worth of attendance. 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').[10][15]
Prospective students may choose which Inn to apply to for membership, but can only apply to one Inn for scholarships. It makes no long-term difference which Inn a barrister joins; an applicant might, for example, choose a particular inn because he or she knows someone already a member, or it has a student association at their university.[citation needed]
The inns' disciplinary functions are carried out by a joint Council of the Inns of Court, which administers the disciplinary tribunals.[16] Barristers are prosecuted by theBar Standards Board.
The four inns are located near one another in central London, near the western boundary of theCity of London. Nearby are theRoyal Courts of Justice, which were moved for convenience fromWestminster Hall to the legal quarter of London in 1882.
Middle Temple and Inner Temple areliberties of the City of London, which means they are within the historic boundaries of the City but are not subject to its jurisdiction. They operate as their own local authorities. These two Inns neighbour each other and occupy the core ofthe Temple area. The closestTube station isTemple.
Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn are in theLondon Borough of Camden (formerly in theBorough of Holborn) near the boundary with the City of London. They do not have the status of a local authority. The nearest Tube station isChancery Lane.
Each Inn is a substantial complex with agreat hall, chapel, libraries, sets of chambers for many hundreds of barristers, and gardens, and covers several acres. The layout is similar to that of anOxbridge college. 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.[17]
Another important inn,Serjeants' Inn, was dissolved in 1877 and its assets were, controversially, distributed amongst the existing members. The membership of the Inn had consisted of a small class of senior barristers calledserjeants-at-law, who were selected from the members of the other four inns and had exclusive rights of audience in certain Courts. Their pre-eminence was affected by the new rank ofKing's Counsel, which was granted to barristers who were not serjeants. The serjeant's privileges were withdrawn by the government in the 19th century, no more serjeants were appointed, and they eventually died out. The area now known as Serjeants' Inn, one of two sites formerly occupied by the Serjeants (the other being in Chancery Lane), was purchased by the Inner Temple in 2002.
It was formerly the custom for senior judges to join Serjeants' Inn, thereby leaving the Inn in which they had practised as barristers. This meant that the Masters of the Bench of the four barristers' Inns of Court were mostly themselves barristers. Since there is now no Serjeants' Inn, judges remain in the Inns which they joined as students and belonged to as barristers. This has had the effect of making the majority of the Masters of the Bench senior judges, either because they become benchers when appointed as judges, or because they become judges after being appointed as benchers.
There were also severalInns of Chancery. These are not Inns of Court but are associated to them:Clement's Inn,Clifford's Inn andLyon's Inn (attached to the Inner Temple);Strand Inn andNew Inn (attached to the Middle Temple);Furnival's Inn andThavie's Inn (attached to Lincoln's Inn); andStaple Inn andBarnard's Inn (attached to Gray's Inn).
In theRepublic of Ireland, there is only one Inn of Court, the Honorable Society ofKing's Inns, founded in Dublin in 1541. After thepartition of Ireland, a separateNorthern Ireland Inn of Court was founded in Belfast in 1926.
From the late 1970s, U.S. Chief JusticeWarren Burger led a movement to create Inns of Court in the United States, loosely modelled after the traditional English Inns. In 1985, he and others established theAmerican Inns of Court Foundation to promote and formally charter local Inns of Court across the United States. 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.[18] At present, each major American city has more than one Inn of Court; for example, one Inn may be affiliated with a local law school, and another may be associated with a specific field of legal practice. American Inns of Court do not possess any real property. 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. American Inn of Court meetings typically consist of a shared meal and a programme presented by one of the Inn's pupillage teams.
The U.S. does not require attorneys to be members of an Inn of Court, and many of the equivalent functions are performed by statebar associations. Some states require attorneys to belong to the official bar association, e.g., the State Bar of Michigan, while other states, such as Illinois, do not make membership of an official bar association a compulsory condition of licensure. 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.
While the American Inns of Court share a collegial relationship with the English Inns, there is no formal or legal relationship.[19][20] A Declaration of Friendship was signed by the English and American Inns of Court, establishing visitation procedures under which American Inn members can acquire a letter of introduction that will officially introduce them to the Inns in England and Ireland, with reciprocal procedures available for English and Irish 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.[22]
By the time of Sir Matthew Hale (1629) the custom for law students to be first entered to an Inn of Chancery before being admitted to an Inn of Court had become obsolete, and thenceforth the Inns of Chancery have been abandoned to the attorneys.
The Inns of Chancery trained clerks of chancery and also provided initial training for men wishing to enter into one of the inns of Court. Later in the period, as the legal profession began to split into two branches, the Inns of Chancery became associated with training of the 'lower branch' solicitors.
Call to the Bar is the graduation ceremony
