By: The Liberty Beacon, Staff Writer | David-William

B.A.R. ATTORNEYS ARE SELF APPOINTED AND HAVE NO LICENSES.

Connecticut Attorney, Simeon E. Baldwin, invited a group of 100 Attorneys from 21 states and the District of Columbia to meet on the 21st day of August of 1878, at Saratoga Springs, New York, to organize the American B.A.R. Association. Most of the men were elite corporate lawyers. Author Jethro K. Lieberman described early ABA membership: “You could become an invitee to membership if you were white, Protestant and native born, preferably with a British surname, and attended the elite law schools such as Harvard, Yale and Columbia; only then did you have a chance of prospering. Catholics, Jews, women and blacks were automatically excluded from membership. This exclusion was necessary to the elite bar’s sense of identity. Any fraternity is defined not only by whom it accepts but also by whom it excludes. The Association also pinned the stigma of immorality on the lower class of lawyers as shysters who talked, dressed and acted differently.”

In 1902 the ABA quit meeting regularly at Saratoga Springs; from that point to 1936 it met in different cities as a means to attract new members. Thus ABA membership grew to 29,008 in 1936. Other statistics demonstrated the same story. The bar went from just two sections, each with two officers, to 14 sections with 960 officers in 1935. The number of committees rose from 18 in 1902 to 27 in 1935. Membership revenues in those years increased from $8,255 to $197,877.66.

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