The Legal Profession: At Work

This chapter discusses changes in the legal profession in the second half of the nineteenth century covering the organization of the bar and admission to the bar. In 1850, there were an estimated 21,979 lawyers in the United States. The number grew very rapidly after the Revolution. In the last half of the century, there was even greater increase. The transformation of the American economy after the Civil War profoundly affected the demand for lawyers, and hence the supply. By 1880, there were perhaps 60,000 lawyers; by 1900, about 114,000. For most of the nineteenth century, no organization even pretended to speak for the bar as a whole, or any substantial part, or to govern the conduct of lawyers. Lawyers formed associations, mainly social, from time to time; but there was no general bar group until the last third of the century.