What is "call to the bar"

Call \Call\, n.

1. The act of calling; -- usually with the voice, but often otherwise, as by signs, the sound of some instrument, or by writing; a summons; an entreaty; an invitation; as, a call for help; the bugle's call. ``Call of the trumpet.''
   --Shak.

   I rose as at thy call, but found thee not.
   --Milton.

2. A signal, as on a drum, bugle, trumpet, or pipe, to summon soldiers or sailors to duty.

3. (Eccl.) An invitation to take charge of or serve a church as its pastor.

4. A requirement or appeal arising from the circumstances of the case; a moral requirement or appeal.

   Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity.
   --Addison.

   Running into danger without any call of duty.
   --Macaulay.

5. A divine vocation or summons.

   St. Paul himself believed he did well, and that he had a call to it, when he persecuted the Christians.
   --Locke.

6. Vocation; employment.

   Note: [In this sense, calling is generally used.]

7. A short visit; as, to make a call on a neighbor; also, the daily coming of a tradesman to solicit orders.

   The baker's punctual call.
   --Cowper.

8. (Hunting) A note blown on the horn to encourage the hounds.

9. (Naut.) A whistle or pipe, used by the boatswain and his mate, to summon the sailors to duty.

10. (Fowling) The cry of a bird; also a noise or cry in imitation of a bird; or a pipe to call birds by imitating their note or cry.

11. (Amer. Land Law) A reference to, or statement of, an object, course, distance, or other matter of description in a survey or grant requiring or calling for a corresponding object, etc., on the land.

12. The privilege to demand the delivery of stock, grain, or any commodity, at a fixed, price, at or within a certain time agreed on. [Brokers' Cant]

13. See Assessment, 4. At call, or On call, liable to be demanded at any moment without previous notice; as money on deposit. Call bird, a bird taught to allure others into a snare. Call boy

    1. A boy who calls the actors in a theater; a boy who transmits the orders of the captain of a vessel to the engineer, helmsman, etc.

    2. A waiting boy who answers a cal, or cames at the ringing of a bell; a bell boy.

       Call note, the note naturally used by the male bird to call the female. It is artificially applied by birdcatchers as a decoy.
       --Latham.

       Call of the house (Legislative Bodies), a calling over the names of members, to discover who is absent, or for other purposes; a calling of names with a view to obtaining the ayes and noes from the persons named.

       Call to the bar, admission to practice in the courts.

n. (context idiomatic legal English) Admission to practice in the courts. vb. To admit (someone) to practice in the courts.

The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party, and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received a "call to the bar". "The bar" is now used as collective noun for barristers, but literally referred to the wooden barrier in old courtrooms, which separated the often crowded public area at the rear from the space near the judges reserved for those having business with the Court. Barristers would sit or stand immediately behind it, facing the judge, and could use it as a table for their briefs.

Like many other common law terms, the term originated in England in the Middle Ages, and the call to the bar refers to the summons issued to one found fit to speak at the 'bar' of the royal courts. In time, the English judges allowed only legally qualified men to address them on the law, and later delegated the qualification and admission of barristers to the four Inns of Court. Once an Inn calls one of its members to its bar, they are thereafter a barrister. They may not, however, practice as a barrister until they have completed (or been exempted from) a pupillage. After completing pupillage they are considered to be a practicing barrister with a right of audience before all courts.

England, Wales, and some other jurisdictions distinguish two types of lawyers, who are regulated by different bodies, with separate training, examinations, regulation and traditions:

• Barristers primarily practice in court and generally specialise in advocacy in a particular field of law; they have a right of audience in all courts of England and Wales.
• Solicitors do not necessarily undertake court work, but have a right of audience in the lower courts ( magistrates' courts and county courts). They are admitted or enrolled as a solicitor, to conduct litigation and practice in law outside court, e.g., providing legal advice to lay clients and acting on their behalf in legal matters.

A solicitor must additionally qualify as a solicitor-advocate in order to acquire the same "higher rights" of audience as a barrister. In other jurisdictions, the terminology and the degree of overlap between the roles of solicitor and barrister varies greatly: in most, the distinction has disappeared entirely.

In England, a call ceremony takes place at the barrister's Inn of Court or at Temple Church for the Inner Temple, before or during the pupillage year. A barrister is called to the utter ("outer") bar or "appointed to the degree of the utter bar". Those appointed as Queen's Counsel are entitled to plead from "within the bar" in court.

The better explanation is that, in the Middle Ages, there was an inner and outer (or utter) bar at Westminster Hall in London, miles away from the Inns of Court. Pupil barristers, bar and law students used to engage within the 'Inner Bar', as a kind of ritual 'trial-advocacy boxing-ring', in a practise series of debates, moots and mock trials judged by qualified barristers and judges acting as referees and standing all the while outside of the Bar, thus the Outer or Utter Bar to which the trainees or apprentices were then called if successful.