South Carolina Archives
Series Description

Petitions to Practice Law, 1820

CREATOR: Constitutional Court.

TITLE: Petitions to practice law

DATE: 1820

VOLUME: 0.33 cubic ft.

BIOGRAPHICAL/ HISTORICAL NOTE: S.C. Statute 1812(5)677 required attorneys to be citizens of the state, have attained their majority, offer character references, and pass the legal examination outlined in S.C. Statute 1796(5)289. The 1796 act required applicants to submit their petitions of admittance to the court at Columbia or Charleston while they were in session. Upon approval of a candidate's qualifications, he would be examined by a competent number of the bar presided over by at least two justices and, after passing the examination, be admitted to the bar.

SUMMARY SCOPE NOTE: This series consists of a single petition made to the Constitutional Court from Thomas Gadsden Jr., dated January 10, 1820, to practice law in the state. Information includes Gadsden's age, desire to be admitted to the practice of law, place of residence, and readiness to be examined by the justices. His "moral character" is attested to by John Gadsden and E. H. Edwards. Thomas Gadsden, Jr. was enrolled among the attorneys of Charleston and pleaded his first case before the Constitutional Court at Charleston during the 1820 May term.

INDEX/FINDING AID: The name of the applicant and of the persons offering a testimonial in his behalf are indexed in the repository's On- line Combined Index to Multiple Record Series, 1675-1929, and in the Combined Alphabetical Index produced by the repository on computer output microfilm (COM) in 1991. In the computer output microfilm index this series is represented by the numeric code 0025 002.

ADDITIONAL FORM: The entire series has been digitized.  The digital images are linked to index hits from the On-line Records Index on the repository's website.

HIERARCHICAL NOTE: Forms part of the records of the Constitutional Court.