Description
Book SynopsisFrom award-winning biographer Philip Girard, Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America is the first history of the legal profession in Canada to emphasize its cross-provincial similarities and its deep roots in the colonial period. Girard details how nineteenth-century British North American lawyers created a distinctive Canadian template for the profession by combining the strong collective governance of the English tradition with the high degree of creativity and client responsiveness characteristic of U.S. lawyers a mix that forms the basis of the legal profession in Canada today.
Girard provides a unique window on the interconnections between lawyers'' roles as community leaders and as legal professionals. Centred on one pre-Confederation lawyer whose career epitomizes the trends of his day, Beamish Murdoch (1800-1876), Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America makes an important and compelling contribution to Canadian legal history.
Table of ContentsI Introduction II Antecedents III Apprenticeship IV The Legal Profession in Nova Scotia: Organization and Mobility V The Making of a Colonial Lawyer, 1822-1827 VI The Maturing of a Colonial Lawyer, 1828-1850 VII The Politics of a Colonial Lawyer: Murdoch, Howe, and Responsible Government VIII Law and Politics in the Colonial City: Murdoch as Recorder of Halifax, 1850-1860 IX Law, Identity and Improvement: Murdoch as Cultural Producer X Epilogue XI Conclusion Appendix A
