Editing Lawyer (section)

===Ancient Rome===
A law enacted in 204 BC barred Roman advocates from taking fees, but the law was widely ignored.<ref>[[John Crook (classicist)|John A. Crook]], ''Law and Life of Ancient Rome'' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 90.</ref> The ban on fees was abolished by [[Claudius|Emperor Claudius]], who legalized advocacy as a profession and allowed the Roman advocates to become the first lawyers who could practice openly—but he also imposed a fee ceiling of 10,000 [[sestertius|sesterces]].<ref>Crook, 90. Crook cites [[Tacitus]], ''Annals'' VI, 5 and 7 for this point. For more information about the complex political affair that forced Emperor Claudius to decide this issue, see ''The Annals of Tacitus'', Book VI ([[Franklin Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania|Franklin Center, PA]]: The Franklin Library, 1982), 208.</ref> This was apparently not much money; the [[Satires of Juvenal]] complained that there was no money in working as an advocate.<ref>Crook, 91.</ref>

Like their Greek contemporaries, early Roman advocates were trained in [[rhetoric]], not law, and the judges before whom they argued were also not legally trained.<ref>Crook, 87.</ref> But very early on, unlike Athens, Rome developed a class of specialists who were learned in the law, known as jurisconsults (''iuris consulti'').<ref name="Crook, 88">Crook, 88.</ref> Jurisconsults were wealthy amateurs who dabbled in law as an intellectual hobby; they did not make their primary living from it.<ref name="Crook, 88" /> They gave legal opinions (''responsa'') on legal issues to all comers (a practice known as ''publice respondere'').<ref>Crook, 89.</ref> Roman judges and governors would routinely consult with an advisory panel of jurisconsults before rendering a decision, and advocates and ordinary people also went to jurisconsults for legal opinions.<ref name="Crook, 88" /> The Romans were the first to have a class of people who spent their days thinking about legal problems, and this is why their law developed in a systematic and technical way.<ref name="Crook, 88" />

[[File:Sarcofago avvocato Valerius Petrnianus-optimized.jpg|thumb|Detail from the sarcophagus of Roman lawyer [[Valerius Petronianus]] 315–320 AD. Picture by [[Giovanni Dall'Orto]].]]
During the [[Roman Republic]] and the early [[Roman Empire]], jurisconsults and advocates were unregulated, since the former were amateurs and the latter were technically illegal.<ref>Crook, 90.</ref> Any citizen could call himself an advocate or a legal expert, though whether people believed him would depend upon his personal reputation. This changed once Claudius legalized the legal profession. By the start of the [[Byzantine Empire]], the legal profession had become well-established, heavily regulated, and highly stratified.<ref>A. H. M. Jones, ''The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey'', vol. 1 ([[Norman, Oklahoma|Norman, OK]]: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 507.</ref> The centralization and bureaucratization of the profession was apparently gradual at first, but accelerated during the reign of Emperor [[Hadrian]].<ref>Fritz Schulz, ''History of Roman Legal Science'' ([[Oxford]]: [[Oxford University Press]], 1946), 113.</ref> At the same time, the jurisconsults went into decline during the imperial period.<ref>Schulz, 113.</ref>

By the fourth century, advocates had to be enrolled on the bar of a court to argue before it, they could only be attached to one court at a time, and there were restrictions on how many advocates could be enrolled at a particular court.<ref>Jones, 508–510.</ref> By the 380s, advocates were studying law in addition to rhetoric, thus reducing the need for a separate class of jurisconsults; in 460, [[Leo I (emperor)|Emperor Leo]] imposed a requirement that new advocates seeking admission had to produce testimonials from their teachers; and by the sixth century, a regular course of legal study lasting about four years was required for admission.<ref>Jones, 512–513.</ref> Claudius's fee ceiling lasted all the way into the Byzantine period, though by then it was measured at 100 [[Solidus (coin)|solidi]].<ref name="Jones, 511">Jones, 511.</ref> It was widely evaded, either through demands for maintenance and expenses or a ''[[sub rosa]]'' [[barter (economics)|barter]] transaction.<ref name="Jones, 511" /> The latter was cause for [[disbarment]].<ref name="Jones, 511" />

The notaries (''tabelliones'') appeared in the late Roman Empire. Like their modern-day descendants, the civil law notaries, they were responsible for drafting wills, conveyances, and contracts.<ref name="Jones, 515">Jones, 515.</ref> They were ubiquitous and most villages had one.<ref name="Jones, 515" /> In Roman times, notaries were widely considered to be inferior to advocates and jury consults.