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Thousands of Bangladeshi lawyers carry the title Barrister-at-Law, and every one of them was called to the Bar by one of four institutions in London. The Inns of Court are among the oldest legal bodies in the world, and their role in the profession is still not widely understood. Here are ten facts.

1. There are four, and there have been four for centuries

Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple and Gray’s Inn are the four Inns of Court. Lawyers have occupied the Temple, once the property of the Knights Templar, since about 1320, and the names Inner and Middle Temple appear in records by 1388. The term “inns of court” itself dates from around 1425.

2. Lincoln’s Inn has the oldest continuous records

The Black Books of Lincoln’s Inn, its administrative records, run continuously from 1422, making it the Inn with the longest unbroken documentation. Gray’s Inn’s records survive from 1569, though it was teaching law well before that.

3. They began as law schools

In the medieval period the Inns were the universities of the common law. Oxford and Cambridge taught Roman and canon law; the common law was learned at the Inns through readings, moots and dining in hall. Formal teaching declined after the seventeenth century and was revived in the nineteenth.

4. Only an Inn can call you to the Bar

Whatever examinations a student passes, they become a barrister only when called by their Inn. The Bar Standards Board regulates training and conduct, but the ceremony of call, and the power to perform it, belongs to the four Inns alone.

5. You still have to dine

The requirement to eat a set number of dinners in hall has become the requirement to complete qualifying sessions. A student must attend ten within five years, spread across educational themes, with at least two in person. The tradition of learning through shared meals has survived six centuries in modified form.

6. The Inns discipline their own

A barrister who breaches professional rules faces a disciplinary tribunal of the Council of the Inns of Court, with the case prosecuted by the Bar Standards Board. Disbarment, the ultimate penalty, is an act of the barrister’s Inn.

7. Gandhi and Nehru were Inner Temple; Jinnah was Lincoln’s Inn

Mohandas Gandhi was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1888 and called in 1891. Jawaharlal Nehru was admitted in 1909 and called in 1912. Muhammad Ali Jinnah joined Lincoln’s Inn in 1893 and was called in 1896. The founders of modern India and Pakistan were, first, English barristers.

8. Bangladesh’s constitutional architect is a Lincoln’s Inn man

Dr Kamal Hossain, who chaired the drafting committee of the 1972 Constitution, was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1959. Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed, counsel in the Eighth Amendment and Masdar Hossain cases, was called by the same Inn in 1958. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, by contrast, was never a barrister; he read law at the University of Dhaka.

9. Lincoln’s Inn honoured a South Asian pioneer with a bust

Cornelia Sorabji, the first woman to practise law in India, was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1922 and called in 1923. In 2012 a bronze bust of her was unveiled at the Inn by Lady Hale, then a Justice of the Supreme Court.

10. The Inns are not the profession’s regulator

Since the Legal Services Act 2007, the Bar’s regulator has been the Bar Standards Board, and its representative body is the Bar Council. The Inns remain responsible for admission, call, education, scholarships and discipline. Their scholarships are substantial: each year the Inns award millions of pounds to students, and many Bangladeshi barristers were called with their help.

A Closing Thought

The connection between the Inns and South Asia is more than historical. Bangladeshi students continue to join them every year, and the Bangladesh Bar Council recognises their call as a qualification for enrolment as an advocate. Six hundred years after the Black Books began, the Inns are still shaping the profession in Dhaka.

Sources

1. Inner Temple, The Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery and their records: https://www.innertemple.org.uk/who-we-are/history/historical-articles/the-inns-of-court-and-inns-of-chancery-and-their-records/
2. Bar Standards Board, Joining an Inn: https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/training-qualification/becoming-a-barrister/joining-an-inn.html
3. Lincoln’s Inn, Qualifying sessions: https://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/student-members/qualifying-sessions/
4. Inner Temple Yearbook, South Asian Heritage Month (Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah): https://publications.innertemple.org.uk/yearbook/articles/2024-2025/south-asian-heritage-month/
5. Lincoln’s Inn, Tales from the Archive: Cornelia Sorabji: https://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/library-archives/tales-from-the-archive/july-2018-cornelia-sorabji/