Professors of the Law: Barristers and English Legal Culture in the Eighteenth Century

The story of the English barristers and the culture of common law between 1690 and 1820 is a complex one. In Professors of the Law David Lemmings provides a wealth of detail about barristers' numbers, education, working habits, reputation, and self-image, and compares them with colonial American lawyers. The broad-ranging conclusion suggests that the bar ultimately failed English society and contributed to the marginalization of the common law.