Essex is a county in the East of England. The county town is Chelmsford,
and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley,
close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches 482 feet (147 metres).
The name Essex derives from the East Seaxe or East Saxons. The Kingdom of Essex
was traditionally founded by Aescwine in 527 AD, occupying territory to the north
of the River Thames, incorporating much of what would later become Middlesex and
Hertfordshire, though its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River
Lee. It is through this origin as one of the 'Saxon' kingdoms that Essex is specifically
not part of the region known as East Anglia (the latter comprising Norfolk, Suffolk,
and Cambridgeshire), settled by tribes calling themselves 'Anglian'. Colchester
in the north east of the county is Britain's oldest recorded town, dating back to
before the Roman conquest, when it was known as Camulodunon, and was sufficiently
well-developed to have its own mint.
Essex County Council was formed in 1889. However, the County Borough of West Ham,
and from 1915 the County Borough of East Ham, formed part of the county but were
not under county council control. Southend-on-Sea also formed a county borough from
1914 to 1974. The boundary with Greater London was established in 1965 when the
former area of the East Ham and West Ham county boroughs and of the Barking, Chingford,
Dagenham, Hornchurch, Ilford, Leyton, Romford, Walthamstow and Wanstead and Woodford
districts was transferred to form the London boroughs of Barking, Havering, Newham,
Redbridge, and Waltham Forest; an area similar to that known as Metropolitan Essex.
Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was
statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part
of the South East England region. In 1998 the districts of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock
separated from the shire county of Essex becoming unitary districts.
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary,
is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney,
counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law
is the system of rules of conduct established by the government of a society to
maintain stability and justice. Working as a lawyer represents the practical application
of legal theory and knowledge to solve real problems or to advance the interests
of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers for legal services.
The educational prerequisites to becoming a lawyer vary greatly from country to
country. In some countries, law is taught by a faculty of law, which is a department
of a university's general undergraduate college. Law students in those countries
pursue a Master or Bachelor of Laws degree. In some countries it is common or even
required for students to earn another bachelor's degree at the
same time. Nor is
the LL.B the sole obstacle; it is often followed by a series of advanced examinations,
apprenticeships, and additional coursework at special government institutes.
In other countries, particularly the United States, law is primarily taught at law
schools. In the United States and countries following the American model, (such
as Canada with the exception of the province of Quebec) law schools are graduate/professional
schools where a bachelor's degree is a prerequisite for admission. Most law schools
are part of universities but a few are independent institutions. Law schools in
the United States (and some in Canada and elsewhere) award graduating students a
J.D. (Juris Doctor/Doctor of Jurisprudence) (as opposed to the Bachelor of Laws)
as the practitioner's law degree. However, like other professional doctorates (including
the M.D.), the J.D. is not the exact equivalent of the Ph.D., since it does not
require the submission of a full dissertation based on original research. Many schools
also offer post-doctoral law degrees such as the LL.M (Legum Magister/Master of
Laws), or the S.J.D. (Scientiae Juridicae Doctor/Doctor of the Science of Law) for
students interested in advancing their knowledge and credentials in a specific area
of law.
The methods and quality of legal education vary widely. Some countries require extensive
clinical training in the form of apprenticeships or special clinical courses. Others
do not, like Venezuela. A few countries prefer to teach through assigned readings
of judicial opinions (the casebook method) followed by intense in-class cross-examination
by the professor (the Socratic method). Many others have only lectures on highly
abstract legal doctrines, which forces young lawyers to figure out how to actually
think and write like a lawyer at their first apprenticeship (or job). Depending
upon the country, a typical class size could range from five students in a seminar
to five hundred in a giant lecture room. In the United States, law schools maintain
small class sizes, and as such, grant admissions on a more limited and competitive
basis.
Law schools in developing countries share several common problems, such as an overreliance
on practicing judges and lawyers who treat teaching as a part-time hobby (and a
concomitant scarcity of full-time law professors); incompetent faculty with questionable
credentials; and textbooks that lag behind the current state of the law by two or
three decades.
|