Legal Practice in Eighteenth-century Scotland

本研究将集中于十八世纪苏格兰法律实践的性质和发展。这是苏格兰法律发展的关键时期。在这个时期，苏格兰律师自己在很大程度上发展了法律，并且在后联合时代的背景下，他们是在英国普通法以及苏格兰人所属的大陆罗马法传统的法律文献的影响下发展法律的。本研究旨在探讨律师和客户之间的关系，并看看律师的作用如何使苏格兰更广泛的社会受益。研究的一个主题是苏格兰法律的中心，爱丁堡的会议法院和全国各地的地方法律代理人的作用之间的关系。爱丁堡的执业人员、签名人和法律代理人，了解中央民事法院的程序，最适合为客户及其当地代理人提供建议，告诉他们辩护人应该雇用哪种类型的诉讼，他们打算提起或辩护。另一方面，当地的代理人主要负责房地产管理，也可能以检察官的身份出现在当地的治安法庭或地方法院。然而，有证据表明，地方法院的检察官往往组成社团，他们试图保护自己的垄断地位，往往只在其中一个职位空缺时才接纳新成员。这通常是在法官的默许下进行的，尽管这与关于工作场所非法结合以及任何有适当资格的职业人员从事其职业的自由的观念的发展是不一致的。关于律师在代理客户时所涉及的关系的信息通常可以在幸存的法律辩论中找到，但也可以在律师的私人信件和法庭记录中找到。地方法院设有检察官财政，其职责是起诉犯罪并确保维持秩序。拟议的研究将试图通过检查地方和中央记录，更密切地界定地方财政的作用。还将利用爱丁堡市议会的记录，以揭示该镇检察官财政的作用。倡议者担任镇议会的评估员，研究的一部分将调查这个办公室的重要性，不仅对倡议者（其中许多人后来成为了会议法院的法官），而且对该镇更广泛的民众，在爱丁堡新城正在建设的时候，他们显然对当地法院的决策质量感兴趣。就更广泛的社会而言，还将调查代表穷人免费行事的律师的作用，这一点在法庭上有充分的记录。这并不局限于律师，还包括签名的作家和1755年后获准在法庭上执业的法律代理人。因此，正在进行的研究是多方面的。它将揭示18世纪苏格兰律师和客户之间的关系。与此同时，它将在很大程度上揭示当地律师团体是如何运作的，以及他们在多大程度上将自己的做法与全国性组织（如果总部位于爱丁堡的话）相呼应，比如律师协会（Faculty of Advocates）和WS Society，这些组织的成员构成了司法学院（College of Justice）的一部分。由于它将不仅以法庭和法律记录为基础，而且以当代私人信件为基础，因此它应该大大增加我们对诉讼策略如何发展以及律师如何管理自己的专业纠纷的认识。

This research will focus on the nature and development of legal practice in Scotland in the eighteenth century. This was a crucial period in the development of Scots law. It was a time when Scots lawyers themselves largely developed the law and, in the post-Union context, did so under the influence of legal literature deriving from the common law in England as well as the continental Roman law tradition to which the Scots themselves belonged. This research aims to explore the relationship between lawyers and clients and to look at how the role of lawyers benefited the wider society in Scotland. One theme of the research is the relationship between the centre of Scots law, the Court of Session in Edinburgh, and the role of local law agents across the country. Edinburgh practitioners, writers to the signet and law agents, understood the procedures of the central civil court and were best placed to advise a client, and his local agent, on which advocates to employ for which type of action they intended to bring or defend. The local agent, on the other hand, would deal largely with estate management and might also appear as a procurator in the local sheriff or burgh court. However, there is evidence that the procurators in local courts, who often formed themselves into societies, sought to protect their monopoly and tended only to admit a new member when a place amongst them fell vacant. This was often done with the connivance of the judge, although it was at odds with the development of ideas about unlawful combinations in the workplace and the freedom of any suitably-qualified profession man to follow his profession. Information about the relationships involved between lawyers in acting for a client is generally to be found in surviving legal arguments but also in the private correspondence of lawyers and in the court records themselves. Local courts had a procurator fiscal whose role was to prosecute crime and ensure the maintenance of order. The proposed research will attempt to define more closely the role of the local fiscal through examining local and central records. Use will also be made of the town council records in Edinburgh in order to bring to light the role of the town's procurator fiscal. Advocates acted as assessors to the town council and part of the research will investigate the significance of this office not only for the advocates (many of whom went on to become Court of Session judges) but for the wider populace of the town who clearly had an interest in the quality of decision-making in their local courts at a time when the New Town of Edinburgh was being built. In terms of wider society, the role of lawyers acting for free on behalf of poor persons, which is well-documented for the Court of Session, will also be investigated. This was not restricted to advocates, but included both writers to the signet and, after 1755, law agents who had been admitted to practise in the court. The research being undertaken is therefore multi-faceted. It will uncover a great deal about the relationship between lawyers and their clients in eighteenth-century Scotland. At the same time, it will reveal much about how local groups of lawyers operated and the extent to which they mirrored their practices on national, if Edinburgh-based, organisations such as the Faculty of Advocates and the WS Society whose members formed part of the College of Justice. Since it will be based not simply on court and legal records, but on contemporary private correspondence, it should add significantly to our knowledge of how litigation strategies developed and how lawyers managed their own professional disputes.