South Carolina Archives
Series Description

Petitions to Practice Law, 1860-1867

CREATOR: Court of Appeals (1859-1868)

TITLE: Petitions to practice law

DATE: 1860-1867

VOLUME: 1.00 cubic ft.

ARRANGEMENT: Series arranged by arbitrarily assigned number.

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 petitions addressed to the chief justices of the Court of Appeals (1859-1868) by applicants to practice before the courts. Information includes the applicant's professional and educational background, signed statements attesting to the applicant's character and qualifications, and the types of courts in which the applicant petitioned to practice. The series includes six petitions from 1860 and one from 1867.

INDEX/FINDING AID: The names of the applicants and of the persons offering testimonials in their 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 0033 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 Court of Appeals (1859-1868).