This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII. DEGREES IN THE INNS OF COURT. STUDENTS. Gentlemen preparing for the Bar from this class, while keeping their terms, usually enter the chamhers of special pleaders, equity draughtsmen, or conveyancers, where they acquire experience in the actual practice of the law. They have access to the libraries of their several Inns, and are now required to attend courses of lectures in the halls of the societies, on various parts of law. In the Middle Temple lectures are delivered on Jurisprudence and the Civil Law; in Gray's Inn on the law of Real Property; in the Inner Temple on the Common Law; in Lincoln's Inn on Equity. There are also lectures delivered on Constitutional and Legal History, by a reader appointed by the four societies jointly. The students may also cultivate their rhetorical powers and practise legal argument at the various forensic societies. In the halls of the Inns of Court they wear a black gown, without hood or sleeves, and dine below the Bar table. Any student, on application to the steward or undertreasurer of the society to which he belongs, can have a certificate of his being a member of an Inn of Court, which will entitle him to a seat in the students' box at Westminster Hall, the Central Criminal Court, and the Courts at the Guildhall. SPECIAL PLEADERS, ETC. Permission to take out a certificate* as a.special pleader, conveyancer, or draughtsman in equity, is given at the discretion of the bench to members who have kept such commons as are required to be kept to qualify them to be called to the Bar. Large numbers thus practise under the Bar in their chambers before their call; and many continue in these departments of the profession five, ten or twenty years. The commissioners on courts of common law...