| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77713 | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree. | en_US |
| dc.format | Monograph | |
| dc.format.medium | Electronic Resource | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY. | |
| dc.type | Dissertation | |
| dcterms.abstract | Legal professionalization in New York was a contested social process entailing myriad local struggles over the use of land and credit. New York’s legal professionalization gained momentum in the mid-eighteenth century, as provincial lawyers pursued a collective mission to monopolize doctrinal interpretation and procedural application of English common law in the colony. The on-the-ground application of that mission frequently pitted lawyers against commoners, many of whom preferred the informal resolutions provided by lay justices, jurors, arbitrators, and town meetings. Professionalized law determined cases with doctrines and procedures alien to most laypeople. It disrupted the local communities’ means of equitable dispute resolution, and aroused widespread suspicion that it solely benefited those who could hire lawyers. Those suspicions were well grounded. Lawyers aided land speculators in every step of their contentious land grabs, and helped wealthy creditors profit from interest, penalties, and mortgaged property. New York’s prohibitively high legal expenses made professionalized law more attractive to wealthy landowners, creditors, and speculators seeking to monopolize opportunities for further economic gain. In order to facilitate the economic elite’s privileged commercial enterprises, New York’s professionalized legal system continually deprived the people of opportunities for economic betterment, exposing them to further economic insecurity. Popular anxiety over the law deepened further when the colony’s leading lawyers vigorously sought to restrict a key area of localized adjudication—the small claims jurisdiction of justices of the peace. More attentive to popular legal needs than trained judges, many lay justices handled the colony’s voluminous small debt claims in a distinctively speedy, flexible, and inexpensive manner. Lawyers opposed the enlarged jurisdiction of justices as inimical to their vision of orderly social development grounded in the stabilizing influence of professionalized law. Popular support of the enlarged justices’ jurisdiction and the strong response to the DeLancey party’s anti-lawyer electoral campaign in the late 1760s showed that many ordinary New Yorkers repudiated the lawyers’ vision of legal and social development. They desired, instead, a more inclusive legal system in which lay people would have a larger say in shaping the laws that affected their daily economic lives. | |
| dcterms.abstract | Legal professionalization in New York was a contested social process entailing myriad local struggles over the use of land and credit. New York’s legal professionalization gained momentum in the mid-eighteenth century, as provincial lawyers pursued a collective mission to monopolize doctrinal interpretation and procedural application of English common law in the colony. The on-the-ground application of that mission frequently pitted lawyers against commoners, many of whom preferred the informal resolutions provided by lay justices, jurors, arbitrators, and town meetings. Professionalized law determined cases with doctrines and procedures alien to most laypeople. It disrupted the local communities’ means of equitable dispute resolution, and aroused widespread suspicion that it solely benefited those who could hire lawyers. Those suspicions were well grounded. Lawyers aided land speculators in every step of their contentious land grabs, and helped wealthy creditors profit from interest, penalties, and mortgaged property. New York’s prohibitively high legal expenses made professionalized law more attractive to wealthy landowners, creditors, and speculators seeking to monopolize opportunities for further economic gain. In order to facilitate the economic elite’s privileged commercial enterprises, New York’s professionalized legal system continually deprived the people of opportunities for economic betterment, exposing them to further economic insecurity. Popular anxiety over the law deepened further when the colony’s leading lawyers vigorously sought to restrict a key area of localized adjudication—the small claims jurisdiction of justices of the peace. More attentive to popular legal needs than trained judges, many lay justices handled the colony’s voluminous small debt claims in a distinctively speedy, flexible, and inexpensive manner. Lawyers opposed the enlarged jurisdiction of justices as inimical to their vision of orderly social development grounded in the stabilizing influence of professionalized law. Popular support of the enlarged justices’ jurisdiction and the strong response to the DeLancey party’s anti-lawyer electoral campaign in the late 1760s showed that many ordinary New Yorkers repudiated the lawyers’ vision of legal and social development. They desired, instead, a more inclusive legal system in which lay people would have a larger say in shaping the laws that affected their daily economic lives. | |
| dcterms.available | 2017-09-20T16:53:24Z | |
| dcterms.contributor | Landsman, Ned C | en_US |
| dcterms.contributor | Rilling, Donna J | en_US |
| dcterms.contributor | Hinely, Susan | en_US |
| dcterms.contributor | Middleton, Simon. | en_US |
| dcterms.creator | Kim, Sung Yup | |
| dcterms.dateAccepted | 2017-09-20T16:53:24Z | |
| dcterms.dateSubmitted | 2017-09-20T16:53:24Z | |
| dcterms.description | Department of History | en_US |
| dcterms.extent | 487 pg. | en_US |
| dcterms.format | Monograph | |
| dcterms.format | Application/PDF | en_US |
| dcterms.identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77713 | |
| dcterms.issued | 2016-12-01 | |
| dcterms.language | en_US | |
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| dcterms.provenance | Item withdrawn by Jason Torre (fjason.torre@stonybrook.edu) on 2018-01-09T15:05:56Z
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| dcterms.provenance | Item reinstated by Jason Torre (fjason.torre@stonybrook.edu) on 2019-01-09T13:19:45Z
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| dcterms.provenance | Item reinstated by Jason Torre (fjason.torre@stonybrook.edu) on 2019-01-09T13:19:55Z
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| dcterms.publisher | The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY. | |
| dcterms.subject | American history -- Law | |
| dcterms.subject | colonial america, justices of the peace, lawyers, legal professionalization, local courts, new york | |
| dcterms.title | Justices of the Peace, Lawyers and the People: Local Courts and the Contested Professionalization of Law in Late Colonial New York | |
| dcterms.type | Dissertation | |
