london legal walk

the legal system is different here (thank you, captain obvious!). one significant deviation is how they train lawyers. first, there are two types - barristers and solicitors. barristers are the ones who argue before judges. they do not interact with the clients. solicitors are the ones who do everything else. clients will contract with a solicitor and if the case needs to go to court, the solicitor will work with the barrister.

there are four inns of court that train barristers (solicitors can get a law degree from any university and then practice law...but barristers must go to one of these four inns of court in order to become a barrister).

this is a shield with the four crests on it. we thought it looked like something from harry potter. the upper left is gryffindor, the next one is ravensclaw, the bottom left is hufflepuff and the bottom right is slytherin. in reality, i cant remember which inn goes with which crest. so for now, we will say this is hogwarts (not the city law school in london). the inns are only in london and they are all fairly close to one another. we walked to each one.

gray's inn. charles dickens coined the term "red tape" at this inn when he observed clerks bundling up opinions and other legal documents in pink ribbon. he claimed the legal profession was all paperwork and didnt achieve anything good at the end of the day. thus he said "red tape, red tape, thats all this is." (slight paraphrasing on my part).middle temple. (again, another scene from harry potter...i'm told this looks like the dining hall. cant you picture dumbledore and the other teachers at the table?)
inner temple. this church was the stage for the da vinci code movie. this circular church was built way back when by the knights templar. supposedly they became the first bank and were extremely wealthy...i guess thats why people didnt like them.
this is also from inner temple. there are two people on top of the horse, but the people who made the inner temple crest thought it was a horse with wings. thus today the crest is a flying horse instead of a horse with two riders.lincoln's inn. supposedly this is the inn with the most money and thus the most amount of scholarships. i believe its also the inn of many famous english politicians. charles dickens did not like lawyers and wrote about the church at this inn in bleak house.

it pretty much doesnt matter which one a barrister joins, but every barrister must join one of them. they are required to meet at the in and eat a communal meal once a month for a year. i cant remember but i'm pretty sure thats all the contact they need with the inn. after that they can practice (but dont be misled, these inns are very exclusive and it is incredibly difficult to be accepted into one...the meal is the easy part).

here are some other important buildings in the legal world. this is where the barristers and judges buy their wigs. the one on the far left is for barristers when they are in court. the middle one is for judges sitting on the bench. the last one is for...i cant remember. these are very expensive (some go for more than 1000 pounds...but they are all hand made from horse hair).
this is the royal courts of justice where all appeals are heard.patent office....if only i had taken copyright.
this is just a cool building. in the olden days, people had to pay taxes based on how much ground they occupied. so to thwart the system, they would build structures wider at the top than the bottom. in some places, people on the top floor could shake hands through their apartment windows. this was one reason why the london fire way back when was so devastating...the fire leapt from building to building with little effort.
let me tell you...after two hours in heels i was definitely glad to be done with the tour. my blisters are healing into some nice callouses. i am starting to get my "london feet" which means that i can walk for an insane amount of time over rocky terrain (i.e. cobblestone) and still be ok. yes! that means i can eat more ice cream sundaes.