History of the American Inns of Court
The bench and the bar have mutual interest in addressing the
issue of civility and ethics in lawyer to lawyer and lawyer to
judge relations. Over the years, this issue has been addressed, in
part, by various codes of conduct. In addition to the codes of
conduct, the American Inns of Court are a collective effort to
improve the quality of legal professionalism in the United
States.
The American Inns of Court are the fastest growing legal movement
in the country. Today, there are over three hundred American Inns
of Court in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Over
25,000 judges, lawyers, law professors, and law students are
currently members of American Inns of Court. Inn of Court members
include forty percent of all federal judges and more than fifteen
hundred state court judges.
We pattern American Inns of Court after the English Inns of Court,
which began in 1292 when King Edward I directed his chief justice
to satisfy a growing need for skilled advocates at the Royal Court
in Westminster. The English Inns of Court grew in number and
importance during the Middle Ages. They emphasized the value of
learning the craft of lawyering from those individuals already
established in the profession. Their collegial environment fostered
common goals and nurtured professional ideals and ethics.
In 1977, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and other American lawyers
and judges spent two weeks in England as part of the Anglo-American
Exchange. They were particularly impressed by the collegial
approach of the English Inns of Court and by the way the Inns
passed on the standards of decorum, civility, ethics, and
professionalism necessary for a properly functioning bar to new
lawyers. Following his return, Chief Justice Burger authorized a
pilot program that could be adapted to the realities of law
practice in the United States.
Chief Justice Burger, former Solicitor General Rex Lee, and Senior
United States District Judge A. Sherman Christensen founded the
first American Inn of Court in 1980. The Inn was affiliated with
the J. Reuben Clark School of Law at Brigham Young University in
Provo, Utah. The number of American Inns increased slowly at first,
but the growth of the movement began to accelerate in 1985 with the
establishment of the American Inns of Court Foundation.
The Chester Bedell American Inn of Court, Florida's first Inn and
the fourteenth in the nation, was founded in 1985 in Jacksonville.
Although actually the twelfth in operation, the number twelve had
already been reserved, and the Bedell Inn's founders were loath to
be named thirteen. The Pinellas Inn of Court (now the Barney
Masterson Inn of Court) was formed in 1988 and was Florida's fifth
Inn. There are currently three Inns in the Sixth Judicial Circuit.
The Canakaris American Inn of Court, also in Pinellas County, was
founded in 1993 and is a family law inn. The Allgood-Altman
American Inn of Court, the only Pasco County inn, was formed in
1995. As of the year 2000, there were twenty-nine inns operating
across the state of Florida; and, in 2008 that number has grown to
thirty-six inns.
Mission on the American Inns of Court
American Inns of Court are designed to improve the skills, the
professionalism, and the legal ethics with which the bench and the
bar perform their functions. They help lawyers become more
effective advocates, with a keener ethical awareness, by providing
them with opportunity to learn side-by-side with the most
experienced judges and lawyers in their communities. The objectives
of each inn are as follows:
- To establish a society of judges, lawyers, legal educators, law
students, and others to promote excellence in the legal advocacy in
accordance with the Professional Creed of the American Inns of
Court;
- To foster a greater understanding of and appreciation for the
adversary system of dispute resolution in American law, with
particular emphasis on ethics, civility, professionalism, and legal
skills;
- To provide significant education experiences that will improve
and enhance the abilities of lawyers as counselors and as advocates
and of judges as adjudicators and as judicial administrators;
- To promote interaction and collegiality among all legal
professionals in order to minimize misapprehensions,
misconceptions, and failures of communication that obstruct the
effective practice of law;
- To facilitate the development of law students, recent law
school graduates, and less experienced lawyers as skilled
participants in the American court system;
- To preserve and transmit ethical values from one generation of
legal professionals to the next; and
- To build upon the genius and strengths of the common law and
the English Inns of Court and to renew and inspire joy and zest in
legal advocacy as a service worthy of constant effort and
learning.