Editing Lawyer (section)

===Ancient Greece===
The earliest people who could be described as "lawyers" were probably the [[orators]] of ancient [[Athens]]. However, Athenian orators faced serious structural obstacles. First, there was a rule that individuals were supposed to plead their own cases, which was soon bypassed by the increasing tendency of individuals to ask a "friend" for assistance.<ref>Robert J. Bonner, ''Lawyers and Litigants in Ancient Athens: The Genesis of the Legal Profession'' (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1927), 202.</ref> However, around the middle of the fourth century, the Athenians disposed of the perfunctory request for a friend.<ref>Bonner, 204.</ref> Second, a more serious obstacle, which the Athenian orators never completely overcame, was the rule that no one could take a fee to plead the cause of another. This law was widely disregarded in practice, but was never abolished, which meant that orators could ''never'' present themselves as legal professionals or experts.<ref>Bonner, 206.</ref> They had to uphold the [[legal fiction]] that they were merely an ordinary citizen generously helping out a friend for free, and thus they could never organize into a real profession.<ref>Bonner, 208–209.</ref> If one narrows the definition of lawyers to people who could practice the legal profession openly and legally, then the first lawyers would be the orators of [[ancient Rome]].<ref>Hazard, 18.</ref>