Chapter 31. The Fluidity of Professions
- American provincial age
- one of liberation rather than genius
- legacy of refreshed community thinking rather than great individual thinking
- free from perpetration of old distinctions, the custodians of social learning
- 4 factors promoting fluidity of thinking
- regression
- people plunged back to conditions of an earlier era
- distinction between weapon and tool, for example, proved meaningless
- versatility required by the unexpected
- unexpected was usual
- one who could not be a little of everything was not qualified to be an American
- scarcity of institutions
- labor-scarcity and land-plenty
- person had to do much for himself since there was no one he could hire
- lower standard set for work to be done
- land lost many of its ancient legal and social peculiarities
Chapter 32. The Unspecialized Lawyer
- England legal system in 17th and 18th centuries was elaborately organized and stratified
- barristers - aristocracy of legal profession
- attorneys
- not authorized to plead in court
- set machinery of court in motion on behalf of client
- solicitors
- private legal agents
- neither authorized to plead in court or set lawsuits in motion
- looked after routine legal matters for their clients
- Early American legal business too scares to support such distinctions
- No colonial legal profession developed before mid-18th century
- courts loosely organized
- some judged lacked legal training
- distrust of lawyer became an institution in itself
- Colonies could not live without law, even if they could live with lawyers
- scarcity of professional apparatus and lack of licensing guilds led to an informal apprenticeship system of training
- apprenticeship a door to all branches of profession
- Lawyer's education
- more than that of general population
- unspecialized
- studied in colonial colleges
- Development of a less snobbish distinction among lawyers -- an informal grading of practitioners by education and experience
- Facts of early American law
- few records kept in many early decisions and opinions
- scarcity of lawbooks
- first volume of American law reports published in 1790
- no great legal systems or encyclopedia produced
- William Blackstone
- Commentaries on the Laws of England
- attempt to reduce disorderly overgrowth of English law to an intelligible and learned system
- godsend to a rising America
- by making legal ideas and jargon accessible in remote areas, he prepared self-made men for leadership in the New World
Chapter 33. The Fusion of Law and Politics. (not outlined)
Related posts:
The Americans: The Colonial Experience by Daniel Boorstin, Book 1. The Vision and the Reality Part 1. A City Upon a Hill: The Puritans of Massachusetts. (12/8/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Part 2. The Inward Plantation: The Quakers of Pennsylvania. (12/10/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Part 3. Victims of Philanthropy: The Settlers of Georgia. (12/13/2014)
The Americans; The Colonial Experience, Part 4. Transplanters: The Virginians. (12/14/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 5: An American Frame of Mind. (12/17/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 6: Educating the Community
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