South Carolina Archives
Series Description

Petitions to Practice Law, 1804-1808

CREATOR: Court of Equity (Charleston District)

TITLE: Petitions to practice law

DATE: 1804-1808

VOLUME: 0.33 cubic ft.

ARRANGEMENT: Series arranged chronologically. For indexing purposes, the petitions have been assigned numbers.

BIOGRAPHICAL/HISTORICAL NOTE: S.C. Statute 1796(5)289 required applicants wishing to practice law to submit their petitions of admittance to the courts 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 eight petitions addressed to the justices of the Charleston District Court of Equity. They state the applicant's educational and professional background, bear signed testimonials to the petitioner's character, and have certified statements attesting to the candidate's educational qualifications. The petitions contain a signed and dated notation by a court justice as to when the petitions were accepted.

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 alpha-numeric code B1AE 004.

HIERARCHICAL NOTE: Forms part of the records of the Court of Equity for Charleston District.