In re O'Brien's Petition

Citation63 A. 777,79 Conn. 46
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
Decision Date03 May 1906
PartiesIn re O'BRIEN'S PETITION.

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Alberto T. Roraback, Judge.

Petition by Mathew E. O'Brien for admission to the bar. From an order dismissing petition, he appeals. Affirmed.

Petition to the superior court in Fairfield county for a hearing as to the petitioner's qualifications for admission to the bar. An order of notice to the Fairfield county bar was made by the court, and on the application of the state's attorney an assistant state's attorney was appointed under Gen. St, 1902, § 472, "to aid in the prosecution and bearing of" the cause. After a hearing on issues of fact, the court dismissed the petition. A plea to the jurisdiction was filed in this court, and overruled on demurrer.

Epaphroditus Peck, for appellant. John C. Chamberlain, Special State's Atty., for appellee.

BALDWIN, J. The rules of the superior court provide, among other things, that no person shall be admitted as an attorney unless the state bar examining committee shall certify to the clerk of the court in the county in which he applies for admission that he has been admitted to and has satisfactorily passed an examination upon certain branches of law, and that to entitle an applicant to such an examination he must satisfy the committee that he filed, at least 15 days previously, a notice of his intention to apply for it with such clerk; that subsequently, at a meeting of the bar, it was voted to approve such intended application; and that he is of good moral character. The county in which the notice is to be filed is that in which the person filing it last studied, or, if he did not pursue his studies in this state, that in which he resides, if a resident of this state. Practice Book 9, rule 1. The petitioner filed the required notice in the proper county, and shortly afterward the county bar referred it to its standing committee on the admission of members. A meeting of the bar to act upon their report was called for January 5, 1906. The state bar examining committee was to hold its last meeting for nearly six months on the day following. He had already been provisionally admitted to an examination conducted in its behalf "pending a decision as to its jurisdiction." On January 3d, the committee of the county bar on the admission of members notified him that they should meet on the evening of January 4th, and that after their "formal meeting" they would like to see him. He thereupon asked to be allowed to be present at such "formal meeting," to hear the charges, if any, that might be made against him and to confront any witnesses who might appear to support them. This request the committee refused, and, after hearing statements, not under oath, from members of the bar and others, some unfavorable and some favorable to the petitioner, notified him to appear before them. He came before them at 10 o'clock, when certain charges which had been previously so made against him were fully explained, and he was heard upon them until midnight, when he requested the committee to take immediate action, so that the matter might come before the bar on January 5th and he might be heard by the state bar examining committee on January 6th. The committee of the county bar reported on January 5th that they had made inquiry and investigation as to his moral character and qualifications, and would advise that he be not recommended for examination. The bar accepted the report and took action accordingly. The report was the result of a careful and impartial examination of the past record and present reputation of the petitioner, and the action of the bar was not actuated by prejudice. Thereafter, the state bar examining committee, after having heard him on the question of its jurisdiction to admit him to an examination, decided that it had not jurisdiction and so notified him; stating in the notice that his examination papers had been marked as entirely satisfactory. Upon proof of this state of facts the superior court decided that it had no power to determine the qualifications of the petitioner, declined to hear evidence as to them, and dismissed the cause.

The appellant contends that the rules of court as to admissions to the bar do not justify the action thus taken. The first legislation in regard to this subject was had in 1708, when it was provided that no attorney should be admitted to the bar of any county court or court of assistants (the name then commonly given to what was also known as the superior court), "without being first approved of by the court," nor until he had taken a special form of oath, substantially the same as that now prescribed by Gen. St. 1902, § 4795. St. (Ed. 1715), p. 135. In 1730 the number of attorneys in the colony was limited to 11, "viz., three attorneys in the county of Hartford and the other four counties to have two attorneys to plead at the bar in each respective county, and no more, which attorneys shall be nominated and appointed from time to time as there shall be occasion by the county court; each county court to appoint the number of attorneys hereby allowed in the county where such court doth preside." St. (Ed. 1715) p. 373. This limitation of number was repealed the next year, but the exclusive power of admitting attorneys continued in the hands of the county court until 1808, when it was enacted that "the superior and county courts be and they are hereby respectively authorized to make such rules and regulations as to them may appear meet, relative to the admission and practice of attorneys in such courts; provided that such rules and regulations shall have no operation upon attorneys already admitted by the county courts." St. (Revision 1750) p. 9; St. (Ed. 1808) p. 67. By the Revision of 1821 this power was again committed exclusively to the county courts, and remained with them until their abolition in 1855, when it was enacted that "the superior court may admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys, such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established by the judges of said court; and all attorneys so admitted shall have the right to practice in all the courts of the state; and said judges are authorized to establish such rules as they shall judge proper relative to the admission, qualifications, practice and removal of attorneys." St (Revision 1821) p. 141; Revision 1849, pp. 208, 222; Pub. Acts 1855, p. 28, c. 26, § 16. This act of 1855 has ever since remained in force. Revision 1902, § 458.

The power of the courts over the admission of attorneys thus given or confirmed by the General Assembly was exercised from the first in each county, largely by the aid of the county bar. It was by this bar that the whole business of the civil courts was, until the closing quarter of the nineteenth century, mainly arranged and made ready for disposition. Assignments of cases for trial were made at the bar meetings presided over by one of their own number, and standing rules were adopted at such meetings in regard, among other things, to the qualifications, examinations, and mode of admission of attorneys. These rules, while not identical in each county, generally provided that every person seeking admission to the bar must be of full age and good moral character; must have studied law under competent instruction for a certain period of years; and must pass a satisfactory examination upon it before a committee of the county bar, and be recommended by them for the approval of the court. Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut, 186. Being framed by the bar, these rules were known in each county as the "rules of the bar," although deriving their real authority from the sanction, expressed or implied, of the court in that county. In re Hall, 50 Conn. 131, 47 Am. Rep. 025. Shortly after the organization of the state bar association in 1875, its committee on legal education reported in favor of a new scheme to regulate admissions to the bar, which should be unifrom throughout the state, under rules adopted by the judges of the superior court it was proposed that they should appoint a state bar examining committee to hold semiannual sessions, before which all candidates must appear, and that no one could be admitted to an examination who had not given 30 days' previous notice to the bar of his county, through the clerk of the superior court, of his intention to apply for it. On this report, adopted by the association in 1881, the rules of court on this subject now in force were based.

These rules maintain the ancient policy of the commonwealth to place the initiative in the process of admission to the bar in the hands of the court and bar of the particular county in which admission may or properly should be sought. There the character and antecedents of each applicant for admission will be best known. Its local bar will have the strongest motive and the best opportunity to inquire into them and to ascertain the facts. For the courts to rely upon their opinion and advice was in accord with the ancient practice of England. There, both attorneys and counselors at law came to their office, and could only come to it, as members of certain voluntary societies formed primarily for purpose of legal education and composed exclusively of those already in practice before the courts and of such as were fitting themselves to enter it. Of these organizations some had been constituted for the benefit of counselors (originally styled "counters," and later "barristers"), and others for that of attorneys. Each society had its own hospitium, or inn, and its own system of discipline and interior government. No one could be called to the bar who was not a member of one of the societies for the education of barristers. No one could be enrolled as an attorney who was not a member of one of the societies for the education of attorneys. In either case, he must appear before the court with the recommendation...

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78 cases
  • Heiberger v. Clark
    • United States
    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • March 21, 1961
    ...129 Conn. 51, 26 A.2d 354; Rosenthal v. State Bar Examining Committee, 116 Conn. 409, 415, 165 A. 211, 87 A.L.R. 991; O'Brien's Petition, 79 Conn. 46, 59, 63 A. 777; In re Hall, 50 Conn. 131. This is so because such proceedings are not actions or suits at law. They are in the nature of inve......
  • Griffiths, Application of
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    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • January 26, 1972
    ...law in this state. The early history is traced in Heiberger v. Clark, 148 Conn. 177, 169 A.2d 652, and at length in O'Brien's Petition, 79 Conn. 46, 63 A. 777; see also Loomis & Calhoun, Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut, pp. 183, 184. The inherent power of the Superior Court as a c......
  • Scott v. State Bar Examining Committee, 14210
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    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • January 14, 1992
    ...185, 169 A.2d 652 (1961); State Bar Assn. v. Connecticut Bank & Trust Co., 145 Conn. 222, 232, 140 A.2d 863 (1958); O'Brien's Petition, 79 Conn. 46, 55, 63 A. 777 (1906), overruled on other grounds, In re Application of Dinan, 157 Conn. 67, 72, 244 A.2d 608 (1968). "This power has been exer......
  • In re [67 W.Va. 214]Application for license to Practice Law
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    • West Virginia Supreme Court
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    ... ... courts over the Legislature in respect to the admission and ... disbarment of attorneys. Petition of Splane, 123 Pa. 527, 16 ... A. 481, a mere obiter dictum; Ex parte Mosness, 39 Wis. 509, ... 20 Am.Rep. 55, [67 W.Va. 239] another dictum pure ... ...
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1 books & journal articles
  • Mary Hall: the Decision and the Lawyer
    • United States
    • Connecticut Bar Association Connecticut Bar Journal No. 79, 2005
    • Invalid date
    ...continued to set the qualifications and handle the admission of attorneys in their counties. O'Brien's Petition for Admission to the Bar, 79 Conn. 46,49-51(1906). certified "that Mary Hall of Marlboro in this State has studied laws in my office for three years [illegible] of [illegible] And......

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