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 N° 3 - Septembre 2018 - Les métiers du droit au défi du numérique
Panorama historique des métiers du droit en France et à l’étranger
Jean-Louis HALPÉRIN
La perspective historique amène à s’interroger sur les origines et l’évolution des métiers du droit. La technique juridique est une invention qui a précédé, dans certaines sociétés de l’Antiquité, l’apparition d’experts en droit, comme les Prudents romains. C’est plus tard que se dessine la figure de l’avocat plaidant avant que les droits savants du Moyen Âge ne provoquent le développement des procureurs, des avocats et des notaires. En France, le pouvoir royal exige la licence en droit pour les avocats, puis pour les juges, et tolère, à partir de la fin du XVIIe siècle, la formation d’ordres d’avocats. Après la rupture révolutionnaire, la réorganisation napoléonienne encadre les avoués, les notaires et les avocats en généralisant la structure ordinale pour ces derniers. La comparaison avec les pays étrangers illustre différentes configurations et l’évolution au XIXe et au XXe siècle vers la professionnalisation et le rapprochement entre les métiers du droit.
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 N° 3 - September 2018 - The legal professions coping with the challenge of digital technology
A historical panorama of the legal professions in France and abroad
Jean-Louis HALPÉRIN
This historical approach inquires into the origins and evolution of the legal professions. Legal procedures were invented before legal experts appeared in ancient societies such as Rome (prudents). The figure of the court lawyer appeared later, before prosecutors, attorneys and notaries emerged out of learnèd sources of law during the Middle Ages. In France, royal authorities required a licence in law for lawyers and then judges. By the end of the 17th century, they tolerated the formation of the equivalent of bar associations. After the French Revolution, Napoleon reorganized the professions of notary and attorney. A comparison with foreign countries lets us glimpse various configurations of these legal professions, a rapprochement between them during the 19th and 20th centuries and the march toward professionalization.
How far back can we go to talk about the legal professions? For legal positivists, law is a technique, like the wheel or money, that was invented separately in different ancient societies: the principalities and then empire of China, the Judaic world, the city of Rome…. Nothing attests the existence of experts whose religious or political functions “predetermined” them to make this invention. What is more likely is that jurists gradually appeared long before the invention of the law. Judges were in charge of settling disputes before the emergence of legal techniques; and for a long time, these judges were not “learned” in the law.
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