10 thoughts on ““I Take Up My Pen”: Hugh B. Brown, 1921”

1. Barrister: “a lawyer entitled to practice as an advocate, particularly in the higher courts.”

   Solicitor: “a member of the legal profession qualified to deal with conveyancing, the drawing up of wills, and other legal matters.”

   I didn’t know the difference until now.

2. Bro. Brown was admitted to the bar in 1921–if Wikipedia is to be believed–so that letterhead was presumably for his first office. The practice of law has changed a lot in the past 95 years, but even then it must have been quite a leap of faith to pass the bar and hang up a shingle and start hoping that clients would show up at the door!

3. Gary, there’s no distinction in licensing in the United States–all lawyers admitted in, say, New York, are licensed to practice before all courts in the state, and to engage in all the non-courtroom work that solicitors in Great Britain or Canada do. As a practical matter, though, lawyers tend to specialize in one type of practice.

   Among the other legal matters solicitors engage in, they act as “instructing solicitors”–a liaison between the client and the barrister actually arguing the case before the court. If Bro. Brown was licensed both as barrister and solicitor, he may well have engaged in direct contact with clients having matters before a court–acting, as it were, as his own instructing solicitor. (Or maybe Alberta doesn’t draw the same distinctions as other Canadian or Commonwealth jurisdictions do.)

4. A quick search suggests that, at least at present, Canadian lawyers often use the title of “barrister and solicitor” even though there is no distinction in licensing. Leave it to us lawyers to use two long words when a short one will do.

   It reminds of the signs I see here in the U.S. for such-and-such, “Attorney at Law.” It’s just a stock phrase — I’m waiting for the day I see a sign advertising an “Attorney at Dentistry.” (Yes, there are attorneys-in-fact, but if you advertise your services as an attorney, we all understand that the practice of law is involved.)

5. Thanks, Mark and Mike. Now, if Bro. Brown had also thrown in the title “esquire,” I imagine he’d have covered all of his bases …?

6. What does the line under Notary Public say? I can’t make it out.

7. Balmoral Block — his address in Lethbridge.

8. My guess is Canadian usage of both together is a reflection of British practice, where the training and licensing of a barrister is actually specialized a bit from that of a solicitor. In the US we don’t distinguish the two and instead talk about specialties in area of law (“tax lawyer”, etc).

9. The Law Society of Upper Canada, which licences attorneys and paralegals in Ontario, has different requirements for barristers and solicitors. But the fact that they use the archaic Upper Canada instead of Ontario makes one wonder if they’re just antediluvian in a lot of different ways.

10. It’s interesting to see this given the hullabaloo that going on right now. One the quotes attributed to Br. Bown that I like to use is, “Rules are meant to be broken, not hearts.” I wonder, if this was better known, how many would use it to bludgeon others towards their point of view.

    I suspect it would be as misused as the more famous, “Easier to ask for forgiveness…” quote from Grace Hopper.

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