Bar (law)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bar (with swinging gate doors) in an American courtroom that separates the judge's bench and lawyer's tables from the public viewing area in the foreground. The term "bar" is also a metonymy used to collectively define the group of licensed lawyers in a certain jurisdiction.

For professional organizations of lawyers, see Bar association.

Bar in legal contexts can have multiple meanings, but most originate from the bar in a courtroom. Quite simply, the bar is a railing or barrier that separates the front part of a courtroom - which includes a judge's bench and tables where attorneys or barristers conduct matters before the court - from the back part of the courtroom where observers are permitted to sit.^[1] Although many courtrooms do not have an actual railing or physical partition that serves as a bar, most courtrooms have an imaginary barrier that separates the judges and attorneys doing the business of the court from the laypersons watching the court in session.^[2] As such, the bar represents a division of labor that separates professionally licensed or certified lawyers from those without that professional status. The term "the bar," therefore, is a metonymy that collectively describes all lawyers licensed or certified to practice law in a given court or jurisdiction.^[1] The term is also used to differentiate lawyers who represent clients ("the bar"), from judges or members of a judiciary ("the bench"), although the phrase "bench and bar" denotes all judges and lawyers collectively.^[2] In the United States, when a lawyer has met the regulatory requirements in a certain jurisdiction for licensure to practice law , he or she is "admitted to the bar." In the United Kingdom, a barrister or Queen's Counsel (or advocate in Scotland) is "called to the bar" if admitted to one of the Inns of Court (or Faculty of Advocates in Scotland).^[2] A lawyer who gives up his or her license to practice law as a sanction for wrongdoing is said to be "disbarred."