relating to attorneys and solicitors,
prescribes the conditions of admission as an attorney, the time and mode
of their service under articles; and the oaths to be administered to
them; and authorizes the Judges of the courts of the common law, and the
Master of the Rolls to appoint examiners to examine the fitness and
capacity of all persons applying to be admitted as attorneys or
solicitors; and the certificate, either of the common law or equity
examiners, will be sufficient to entitle a person so examined to
admission in all the courts, examination by both not being necessary. 3
Stewart's Blackst. 29.

2. _Barristers._--The proper legal denomination of this class is
_apprentices_, being the first degree in the law conferred by the inns
of court. Spelman defines apprentice, _tyro_, _discipulus_, _novitius in
aliqua facultate_. This was probably the meaning of the term primarily;
but as early as the reign of Edward I, it was employed to denote
counsel below the state and degree of serjeant at law; one degree
corresponding to that of bachelor, and the other to that of doctor, in
the universities (Pearce's History of the Inns of Court, 28). Lord Coke
informs us, however, that this degree was anciently preferred to that of
serjeant (2 Inst. 214). They were termed _apprenticii ad legem_, or _ad
barras_; and hence arose the cognomen of _barristers_. A barrister must
have kept twelve terms, _i. e._, been three years a member of an inn of
court, before he can be called to the Bar. After a member of an inn of
court has kept twelve terms, he may, without being called, obtain
permission to practice _under the Bar_. This class of practitioners are
called _special pleaders_ or _equity draftsmen_ (according as they
prepare pleadings in the common law or equity courts), or
_conveyancers_, who prepare deeds. 3 Stewart's Blackst. 26, note. Those
who are regularly called, however, may take upon them the causes of all
suitors. Such of the barristers as have a patent of precedence, as
king's counsel, sit within the Bar, with the serjeants; all others are
called _utter_ or _outer barristers_.

3. _Serjeants at law._--_Servientes ad legem_, or serjeant-countors. The
coif or covering to the head worn by this order has also given a
denomination to them. There exists some differences of opinion among
judicial antiquarians as to the origin of the coif. It is supposed by
some to have been invented about the time of Henry III, for the purpose