 There are three main interpretations regarding the origin of the modern American lawyer profession. The first group of understanding includes Lionel Casson, Peter Jones, Charles S. Wheeler, William Forsyth, and Robert Bonner. The authors use Aristophanes’ Clouds and Wasps, or position other authors that have used them and court records as evidence to dispute that the modern lawyer developed from the logographoi profession that began in Athens in the fifth century B.C. The five authors agree on the importance of the logographoi to the legal process; a accusers best chance for winning a court case was utilizing the skills of a logographoi since only a logographoi could efficiently create a legally realistic speech.
The plays by Aristophanes are fundamental to this interpretation because they absolute firsthand experience with lawyers, and insist and show both the legal and social role logographoi played in ancient Athenian society. The documentary verification to support this theory of lawyer origination is far more convincing than the Egyptian facts since it consists of a much wider collection of legal documents. The second group of interpretation, which only consists of Russ VerSteeg, quarrels that modern lawyers advanced from the legal scribes of ancient Egypt. VerSteeg insists that Egyptian engraves were the earliest and closest “ancestor” of modern lawyers because they breezed legal documents for clients. VerSteeg’s proof is also limited to ancient papyrus court records that leave much to be interpreted, since they were mostly based upon judgments of the god Osiris. The author’s quarrel is defective because he ignores the advocating role of the modern lawyer, which the scribes never played. Overall, Egyptian papyrus lacks facts to support “lawyer” activity in ancient Egypt. The third, and last, interpretation is only protected by Jacqueline De Romilly. This author asserts that sophists were not the origin of the lawyer profession, and arguments the idea that logographoi were an official part of sophistry. The evidence given by the authors of the second interpretation gave sufficient evidence to the opposing; the logographoi evolved from the sophists since both professions were sufficiently trained in the art of rhetoric. This argument is a rather fragile one, since this author did not give adequate proof to support that logographoi were of a different professional class than sophists. De Romilly did not persuasively contest the relationship between the sophists and logographoi. The one convincing argument that the author argues, using Cicero’s speeches as confirmation, is that the logographoi ultimately developed into the jurists of ancient Rome. The Roman jurists had the professional duty of answering legal issues and giving legal advice. This author further argues that this profession possessed the most qualities of the modern lawyer, making it the closest “ancestor” and most correct origin.
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