The Bar in the United States
Practical Information
Means:
1. The collective group of lawyers permitted to practice law. 2. The court itself. 3. A defense that prohibits an action. (Revised by Ann De Vries)
Definition
In law, a word having several meanings; thus, it is the term used to signify an enclosure or fixed place in a court of justice where lawyers may plead. In Enghsh superior courts King’s counsel are admitted within the bar; other members of the bar sit or stand outside. A railed-off space within the Houses of Lords and Commons is similarly called the bar. The dock, or enclosed space, where accused persons stand or sit during their trial is also called the bar; hence the expression “prisoner at the bar.” It has also a general meaning in legal procedure, signifying something by way of stoppage or prevention. There is also a trial at bar — that is, a trial before the judges of a particular court, who sit together for that purpose in hanc. The term is used both in England and the United States as a synonym for the legal profession.
Main Source: The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)
Each state in America has its own bar, consisting of all attorneys-at-law residing within it who have been admitted to practice in its courts. Generally attorneys are admitted in one court to practice in all courts. Each of the United States courts has a bar of its own. An attorney of a state cannot practise in a court of the United States unless he has been admitted to it, or to one of the same class in another district or circuit. He cannot appear in the Supreme Court of the United States unless specially admitted and sworn as an attorney of that court, which is done on motion in case of any one who has practised for three years in the highest courts of his state and is in good standing at its bar. In most of the states there is a state bar association, and in some cities and counties local bar associations.
These consist of such members of its bar as desire thus to associate, the object being to guard and advance the standards of the profession. Some own valuable libraries. These associations have no official recognition, but their influence is considerable in recommending and shaping legislation respecting the judicial establishment and procedure. They also serve a useful purpose in instituting or promoting proceedings to discipline or expel unworthy attorneys from the bar. There is an American Bar Association, founded in 1878, composed of over 3500 members of different states of like character and position. Some of these associations publish annually a volume of transactions. The rights, duties and liabilities of counsellor-at-law are stated under Attorney.
As members of the bar of the state in which they practise they are subject to its laws regulating such practice, e.g. in some states they are forbidden to advertise for divorce cases (New York Penal Code [1902] § 148a) (1905, People v. Taylor [Colorado], 75 Pac. Rep. 914). It is common throughout the United States for lawyers to make contracts for “contingent fees,” i.e. for a percentage of the amount recovered. Such contracts are not champertous and are upheld by the courts, but will be set aside if an unconscionable bargain be made with the client (Deering v. Scheyer [N.Y.], 58 App. D. 322). So also by the U.S. Supreme Court (Wright v. Tebbets, 91 U.S. 252; Taylor v. Benis, 110 U.S. 42). The reason for upholding such contracts is that otherwise poor persons would often fail of securing or protecting their property or rights. In fact such contracts are seldom set aside, though no doubt the practice is capable of abuse.
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)
Bar Definition
(1) A particular part of the court room. As thus applied, and secondarily in various ways, it takes its name from the actual bar, or inclosing rail, which originally divided the bench from the rest of the room, as well as from that bar, or’ rail, which then divided, and now divides, the space Including the bench, and the place which lawyers occupy in attending on and conducting trials, from the body of the court room. Those who, as advocates or counsellors, appeared as speakers in court, were said to be “called to the bar,” that is, called to appear in presence of the court, as barristers, or persons who stay or attend at the bar of court. Rich. Diet. “Barrister.” By a natural transition, a secondary use of the word was applied to the persons who were so called, and the advocates were, as a class, called “the bar.” And in this country, since attorneys, as well as counsellors, appear in court to conduct causes, the members of the legal profession, generally, are, called the “bar.”
(2) The court, in its strictest sense, sitting in full term, i TJius, a civil case of great consequence was not left to be tried at nisi prius, but was tried at the “bar of the court itself,” at Westminster. 3 BL Comm. 352. So a criminal trial for a capital offense was had “at bar” (4 Bl. Comm. 351), and in this sense the term “at bar” is still used. It is also used in this sense, with a shade of difference (as not distinguishing nisi prius from full term, but as applied to any term of the court), when a person indicted for crime is called “the prisoner at the bar,” or is said to stand at the bar to plead to the indictment. See Merlin, Repert. “Barreau;” 1 Dupin, Prof. d’Av. 451.
(3) An obstacle or opposition. Thus, relationship within the prohibited degrees, or the fact that a person is already married, is a bar to marriage.
(4) A perpetual destruction of the action of the plaintiff. 1 Ore. 47.
(5) Bar in the old books is sometimes used for “plea in bar.” Co. Litt. 303b.
This definition of Bar is based on The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary.
For other meanings of the Bar, read Bar in the Legal Dictionary here.
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