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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
Now the active young attorneys
Briskly travel on their journeys
Looking big as any giants
On the horses of their clients.
Jonathan Swift, Helter Skelter, or, The Hue and Cry after the Attorneys upon their Riding the Circuit, ll. 1–4Q. How can my son succeed at the Bar?
A. Well, madam, he must marry the daughter of a leading attorney, write a law book, or go on Circuit. The only other way that I can think of, madam, is by a blooming miracle.
Quoted by E. Sheehy, May It Please the Court (Dublin, 1951), 60Compared with the conduct of criminal business, the trial of civil cases begun before one of the three common law benches at Westminster and brought to assizes by writ of nisi prius appears sophisticated and largely devoid of incident. Probably for this reason as much as any other, the two judges normally alternated between the Crown and nisi prius sides from one assize to the next. After the legally uninteresting and physically demanding routine of the Crown court, they doubtless found the atmosphere of nisi prius hearings–in which both parties were represented by counsel, and where any error, judicial or otherwise, was likely to be spotted when the postea was referred for judgment to the court in bane at Westminster–familiar, even entertaining. ‘II s'amuse a juger’, exclaimed a French advocate upon witnessing the ease and delight with which Justice Bayley (1763–1841) handled circuit business. Of Lord Mansfield it was said that ‘his idea of heaven was to sit at nisi prius all day, and play at whist all night’.
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