The Liberty Beacon
Connecticut Attorney, Simeon E. Baldwin, invited a group of 100 Attorneys from 21 states and the District of Columbia to meet on the 21st day of August of 1878, at Saratoga Springs, New York, to organize the American B.A.R. Association. Most of the men were elite corporate lawyers. Author Jethro K. Lieberman described early ABA membership: “You could become an invitee to membership if you were white, Protestant and native born, preferably with a British surname, and attended the elite law schools such as Harvard, Yale and Columbia; only then did you have a chance of prospering. Catholics, Jews, women and blacks were automatically excluded from membership. This exclusion was necessary to the elite bar’s sense of identity. Any fraternity is defined not only by whom it accepts but also by whom it excludes. The Association also pinned the stigma of immorality on the lower class of lawyers as shysters who talked, dressed and acted differently.” Continue reading “B.A.R. ATTORNEYS – NO LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY IN COURTROOMS”