Bar associations began as exclusive elite clubs, not mass professional bodies

Evidence

The first modern bar association was the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. It was founded in 1870 by what one lawyer called “the decent part of the profession.” This “decent part” had boiled over in indignation because of the plague of corrupt lawyers, judges, and politicians in Boss Tweed’s New York City. A few years later, in 1878, “seventy-​five gentlemen” of the bar, meeting in Saratoga, New York, founded a national group, the American Bar Association. … Bar associations in their early days made no attempt to recruit the mass of American lawyers. They were basically clubs of like-​minded, high-​class lawyers. Indeed, that was their point: they kept the riffraff out and admitted only the “best elements” of the pro­ fession. The purpose was reform—​drafting better laws, fighting against corruption, rais­ ing the prestige of the profession. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1278

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Professional ethics rules banning advertising protected elite lawyers over clients — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1281; Professional ethics codes partly serve elite bar interests as anticompetitive rules. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4043

Broader Connections

• Professional ethics codes partly serve elite bar interests as anticompetitive rules. #expands (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4043