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VOL. 79 PART 3 MAY 2021
well choose the services of solicitors over those of less-well-regulated
professions—and thereby save the solicitor from the fate of the English
“attorney”.
The intent of this article is to increase awareness among solicitors of their
own history, of their value to society and of their need to fight for the survival
of their profession. While it is tempting to end with a call to solicitors
to “arise!”, at this stage the more realistic rallying call is to “awake!”
ENDNOTES
1. D. Podmore, Solicitors and the Wider Community
(London: Heinemann, 1980), at p. 1.
2. Ibid.
3. Sir William Holdsworth, A History of English Law
(London: Methuen, 2nd edition, 1937, reprinted
1971), vol. VI, at pp. 448–449.
4. Ibid., at p. 450.
5. Ibid., at pp. 453–454.
6. Ibid., at p. 457.
7. A.M. Carr-Saunders and P.A. Wilson, “The Professions”,
quoted in J. Disney, J. Basten, P. Redmond
and S. Moss, eds., Lawyers (Sydney: The Law Book
Company, 1986), at p. 19.
8. Podmore, supra, at p. 2.
9. Ibid., at p. 4.
10. The Daily British Colonist, “Briefless Barristers” (from
Imperial Review), January 16, 1868.
11. Podmore, supra, at p. 3.
12. Ibid., at p. 4.
13. Ibid., at p. 6.
14. M.M. Krotter, “The Rise of the English Solicitor: A
Study in Professionalization”, in Law Society of
Upper Canada Gazette (1973) 7, at p. 169.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., at p. 174.
17. M. Birks, Gentlemen of the Law (London: Stevens,
1960), at p. 3, quoted in Podmore, supra, at p. 33.
18. Podmore, supra, at p. 35.
19. Ibid., at p. 36.
20. E. Greenwood, “Attributes of a Profession” (2 Social
Work 44, 1957), quoted in Disney et al., supra, at p.
75.
21. Disney et al., supra, at p. 589.
22. B. Abel-Smith and R. Stevens, “In Search of Justice”
(1968), at 155, quoted in Disney et al., supra, at p.
589.
23. Disney et al., supra, at p. 580.
24. R. Starnes, “Research team comes up with top
depression indicators”, Times Colonist, December
15, 1998, at p. D7.
25. D. Riesman, “Towards an Anthropological Science of
Law and the Legal Profession”, The American Journal
of Sociology (1951), vol. 57, at p. 126.