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Virginia State Law Library, Supreme Court of Virginia Archives
Virginia State Law Library© 2013 By The Virginia State Law Library. All rights reserved.
Processed by: Catherine G. OBrion
Collection is open to research.
Because the library is not open to the general public, researchers should contact the library to arrange access to the collection.
Requests for Certification to take the Written Bar Exam, 1897-1929 (bulk 1897-1909), Accession 00031578, Supreme Court of Virginia Archives, Virginia State Law Library, Richmond, Va.
These records were transferred to the State Law Library from the Office of the Clerk to the State Law Library in 2006.
In 1895, the General Assembly enacted legislation transferring responsibility for examining prospective lawyers from the circuit court to the highest court in the state. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia established rules that provided for a written examination to be held in Richmond, Staunton, and Wytheville at different times of year while the court was in session. The examinations were open to any applicant, provided he was at least 21 years old, a resident of Virginia for six months, and "able to produce a certificate of honest demeanor from his local circuit court." The new rules took effect July 1, 1896. Women were implicitly denied an opportunity to apply for membership in the bar. In 1894, a U.S. Supreme Court opinion upheld the Supreme Court of Virginia's ruling that the word "person" meant "man" in an 1887 statute regarding admission of foreign attorneys (LOCKWOOD, EX PARTE, 154 U.S. 116).
An act approved by the General Assembly March 14, 1910, established the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners and authorized it to license lawyers and determine the qualifications of applicants who wished to take the bar examination. The Board served under the auspices of the Supreme Court of Appeals.
Source: J. Gordon Hylton, "The Written Bar Examination and the Development of the Modern Legal Profession in Virginia," Richmond Law, Summer 1991 Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 6.
The collection contains letters to the Supreme Court of Appeals from individuals seeking certification to take the written bar exam, 1897-1909. Most letters include character references from members of the bar in the applicant's local court. For some applicants, the only record is a letter requesting the transfer of the file to Staunton or Wytheville.
The letters are arranged chronologically and alphabetically within each year.
The collection also contains two folders of correspondence, 1902-1929, from attorneys requesting admission to the Virginia bar from other states and the District of Columbia.
Separated material: Law license applications, 1898-1899, and failed bar examinations, 1903-1906, part of the collection, Records of the Supreme Court of Appeals, 1871-1914, accession number 31211.