Inns of Court – Who Really Controls The American Legal System?
Black’s Law Dictionary, First Edition, West Publishing Company (1891) INNS OF COURT. These are certain private unincorporated associations, in the nature of collegiate houses, located in London, and invested with the exclusive privilege of calling men to the bar; that is, conferring the rank or degree of a barrister. They were founded probably about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The principal inns of court are the Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. (The two former originally belonged to the Knights Templar; the two latter to the earls of Lincoln and Gray respectively.) These bodies now have a “common council of legal education” for giving lectures and holding examinations. The inns of chancery, distinguishable from the foregoing, but generally classed with them under the general name, are the buildings known as “Clifford’s Inn,” “Clement’s Inn,” “New Inn,” “Staples’ Inn,” and “Barnard’s Inn.” They were formerly a sort of collegiate houses in which la
