The
Inns of Court in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
are the professional associations for
barristers in England and WalesBarristers in England and Wales are one of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales, the other being solicitors. -Origin of the profession:The work of senior legal professionals in England and Wales...
. All such barristers must belong to one such association. 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, although growth in the legal profession, together with a desire to practise from more modern accommodation caused many barristers'
chambersA judge's chambers, often just called his or her chambers, is the office of a judge.Chambers may also refer to the type of courtroom where motions related to matter of procedure are heard.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :...
to move outside the precincts of the Inns of Court in the late 20th century.
History and composition
Several centuries ago the Inns of Court were any of a sizable number of buildings or precincts where barristers traditionally lodged, trained and carried on their profession.
Over the centuries the number of active Inns of Court was reduced to the present four:
- The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
- The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
- The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
- The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records to 1422 ; whilst the Inner and Middle Temples are recorded as separate societies in a manuscript yearbook of 1388. However, by tradition, none of the Inns claims to be the oldest of the four.
The Inns are near the western boundary of the
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
; nearby are the
Royal Courts of JusticeThe Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is the building in London which houses the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the High Court of Justice of England and Wales...
(opened in 1882; previously sat in Westminster Hall), which were placed in the legal quarter of London for convenience. Each Inn is a substantial complex with a
great hallA great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...
, chapel, libraries, sets of chambers for many hundreds of barristers, and gardens, and covers several acres. The layout is similar to that of an "
OxbridgeOxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
" college. The "chambers" were originally used as residences as well as business premises by many of the barristers, but today, with a small number of exceptions, they serve as offices only.
Membership and governance
Each of the four Inns of Court has three ordinary grades of membership: students, barristers, and Masters of the Bench or "
bencherA bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher can be elected while still a barrister , in recognition of the contribution that the barrister has made to the life of the Inn or to the law...
s". 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, usually QCs, 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.
Prospective students may choose to which Inn to apply for membership, but can only apply to one Inn for scholarships. An applicant may choose a particular Inn because he or she knows someone already a member, or it has a student association at their university. It makes no long-term difference which Inn a barrister joins.
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 the
Bar Professional Training CourseThe Bar Professional Training Course is a graduate course that is completed by those wishing to be called to the Bar, i.e. to practise as a barrister in England and Wales...
, but do provide supplementary education during the 'Bar School' year,
pupillageA pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland, is the barrister's equivalent of the training contract that a solicitor undertakes...
and the early years of practice. All prospective Bar School students must be a member of one of the four Inns, and must attend twelve '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, a right currently found in section 27(3) of the
Courts and Legal Services Act 1990The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the legal profession and Courts of England and Wales...
.
Location
The four Inns are close to one another in central London. Middle Temple and Inner Temple are
libertiesOriginating in the Middle Ages, a liberty was traditionally defined as an area in which regalian rights were revoked and where land was held by a mesne lord...
of the
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, 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 of the Temple area. The closest
tubeThe London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
station is
TempleTemple is a London Underground station in the City of Westminster, between Victoria Embankment and Temple Place. It is on the Circle and District lines between Embankment and Blackfriars and is in Travelcard Zone 1. The station entrance is from Victoria Embankment...
.
Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn are in the
London Borough of CamdenIn 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...
(formerly in the Borough of Holborn) near the boundary with the City of London. They do not have the status of local authority. The nearest tube station is
Chancery LaneChancery Lane is a London Underground station in central London. It is on the Central Line between St. Paul's and Holborn stations. The station is located at the junction of High Holborn, Hatton Garden and Gray's Inn Road with subway entrances giving access to the ticket office under the roadway...
.
Other Inns
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 called serjeants-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 of
Queen's CounselQueen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
, 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 minor
Inns of ChanceryThe Inns of Chancery or Hospida Cancellarie were a group of buildings and legal institutions in London initially attached to the Inns of Court and used as offices for the clerks of chancery, from which they drew their name...
, including Clement's Inn,
Clifford's InnClifford's Inn was an Inn of Chancery which is located between Fetter Lane and Clifford's Inn Passage, leading off Fleet Street, EC4.Founded in 1344 and dissolved in 1903, most of the original structure was demolished in 1934...
and
Lyon's InnLyon's Inn was one of the Inns of Chancery attached to Inner Temple. Founded some time during or before the reign of Henry V, the Inn educated lawyers including Edward Coke and John Selden, although it was never one of the larger Inns...
(attached to the
Inner TempleThe Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
); Strand Inn and New Inn (attached to the
Middle TempleThe Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
);
Furnival's InnFurnival's Inn was an Inn of Chancery which formerly stood on the site of the present Holborn Bars building in Holborn, London, England.-History:...
and Thavie's Inn (attached to
Lincoln's InnThe Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
); and
Staple InnStaple Inn is a building on the south side of High Holborn in London, England. Located near Chancery Lane tube station, it is used as the London office of the Institute of Actuaries and is the last surviving Inn of Chancery and is a listed building....
and
Barnard's InnBarnard's Inn is the current home of Gresham College in Holborn, London.-History:Barnard's Inn dates back at least to the mid 13th century — it was recorded as part of the estate of Sir Adam de Basyng, one time Mayor of London. It passed on to John Mackworth, the Dean of Lincoln who in turn passed...
(attached to
Gray's InnThe Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
). There were and are only four Inns of Court, which have a special and historic status including, for example, the authority to call members to the Bar and therefore confer on them rights of audience in the High Court. The other Inns (none of which continues to function), including the Inns of Chancery, were not Inns of Court.
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 this very day, in that 10 Stone Buildings in Lincoln's Inn has been the permanent home of the Inns of Court & City Yeomanry since the building was freed up by the abolition of the Clerks of Chancery in 1842.
There is also an Inn of Court of Northern Ireland. In the
Republic of IrelandIreland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, there is only one Inn of Court, the Honorable Society of
King's InnsThe Honorable Society of King's Inns , is the institution which controls the entry of barristers-at-law into the justice system of Ireland...
.
American Inns of Court
From the late 1970s, U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger led a movement to create Inns of Court in the United States. Although they are loosely modeled after the traditional English Inns, American Inns of Court do not include any real property. They are groups of judges, practicing attorneys, law professors and students who meet regularly to discuss and debate issues relating to legal ethics and professionalism. American Inn of Court meetings typically consist of a shared meal and a program presented by one of the Inn's pupillage teams. Chief Justice Burger and others established the
American Inns of Court FoundationAmerican Inns of Court are designed to improve the skills, professionalism and ethics of the bench and bar. An American Inn of Court is an amalgam of judges, lawyers, and in some cases, law professors and law students...
in 1985 to promote and charter Inns of Court across the United States.
The U.S. does not require attorneys to be a member of an Inn of Court, and many of the equivalent functions are performed by
Bar AssociationA bar association is a professional body of lawyers. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their jurisdiction; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their members; in many cases, they are both...
s. However, some states do 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 compulsory membership in an official bar association a condition of licensure. But neither voluntary bar 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 Inns of Court in selection and training of new barristers.
See also
- Inns of Court comparison table
- Doctors' Commons
Doctors' Commons, also called the College of Civilians, was a society of lawyers practising civil law in London. Like the Inns of Court of the common lawyers, the society had buildings with rooms where its members lived and worked, and a large library...
- The Inns of Court and City Yeomanry
Known by its new title since 2009, the Inns of Court & City and Essex Yeomanry is a Royal Signals squadron in the British Territorial Army with its headquarters in Chancery Lane, London...