Lawyers and the post nominal title esquire

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otago

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For a country that states it has no use for the nobility the US seems to make a lot of use of titles.
I received a letter from a female Florida lawyer four or five years ago and to my amusement she had the letters Esq after her name.

So I checked with my local expert(the wife) on usage of the word esquire and was told that women should never use it, and it is only used by a person addressing others by mail never to be used by one's self.

Do lawyers not find it pretentious to use a title meaning shield carrier, or are their skins that thick that the word pretentious would have no meaning ?

Can only lawyers use the term in the US ?

Why the term honourable for judges ? I take it the US has no privy council that HM heads.

Oh, should the USA be free of all pretentious titles both post and pre nominal ?
 
While it's derived from British tradition, it's not used in the same way. It just means the person is a lawyer, and it's essentially an honorific as an alternative to Mister, akin to, say, Doctor. It's used by both male and female lawyers. It's not considered a noble title.
 
I was kind of expecting this to refer to the Titles of Nobility Amendment (sometimes called TONA, for short).


The US Constitution bans titles of nobility, but does not set any penalty.
US Constitution said:
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
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The Titles of Nobility Amendment would have added a punishment, the loss of citizenship.

Titles of Nobility Amendment said:
If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.[1]
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Many people (well, at least many conspiracy theorists) believe that this amendment actually did pass, but that this has been covered up. Many 19th century printings of the Constitution included this as the 13th amendment, most of which were from before what we now know as the 13th amendment (the abolition of slavery, with an exception of slavery as punishment for crimes of which one has been dully convicted) was ratified but some of which include both. More than enough states than were needed when it was proposed ratified it, but new states kept being added just fast enough to push the requirements higher.


Some theories hold that the TONA was actually directed against lawyers. Lawyers were no better liked when our nation was first founded than they are now, and there was also a suspicion that they were loyal to the Crown. After all, the International Bar Association was headed by the King of England, and since the American Bar Association did not exist yet it was that association to which American lawyers were associated. Since the War of 1812 prevented the amendment from coming up for a vote in the last state needed at the time, some conspiracy theorists have postulated that the was itself was a diversion that Lawyers created in order to stay in power. They also like to claim that Abraham Lincoln's proposal and signing of a 13th Amendment guaranteeing that the Federal Government would never abolish slavery in states where it still existed was meant to cover up that there was a 13th amendment that would make him ineligible for citizenship and thus the presidency already in place. (If I recall, this was the only time a president signed a proposed amendment and the act had no legal meaning, but he wanted to make a point early in his presidency so as to try to stop the war.)


From what I've heard, Esquire doesn't really count as a title of nobility in Britain, and so it probably (unfortunately?) wouldn't really strip all lawyers (or even just the pretentious ones) of their citizenship. I believe it would however make accepting campaign contributions from foreign sources a very serious crime, and block those like Rudy Giuliani and Ted Kennedy from holding office. It would certainly block my old congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, as a large potion of her campaign contributions (I think even a majority in one election) came from middle eastern sheiks (several of whom are also believed to have donated to Al Quaeda, yet she claimed that Bush was the one who planned the attack on the world trade center).

TONA sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
 
MagisterCultuum said:
I was kind of expecting this to refer to the Titles of Nobility Amendment (sometimes called TONA, for short).


The US Constitution bans titles of nobility, but does not set any penalty.


The Titles of Nobility Amendment would have added a punishment, the loss of citizenship.



Many people (well, at least many conspiracy theorists) believe that this amendment actually did pass, but that this has been covered up. Many 19th century printings of the Constitution included this as the 13th amendment, most of which were from before what we now know as the 13th amendment (the abolition of slavery, with an exception of slavery as punishment for crimes of which one has been dully convicted) was ratified but some of which include both. More than enough states than were needed when it was proposed ratified it, but new states kept being added just fast enough to push the requirements higher.


Some theories hold that the TONA was actually directed against lawyers. Lawyers were no better liked when our nation was first founded than they are now, and there was also a suspicion that they were loyal to the Crown. After all, the International Bar Association was headed by the King of England, and since the American Bar Association did not exist yet it was that association to which American lawyers were associated. Since the War of 1812 prevented the amendment from coming up for a vote in the last state needed at the time, some conspiracy theorists have postulated that the was itself was a diversion that Lawyers created in order to stay in power. They also like to claim that Abraham Lincoln's proposal and signing of a 13th Amendment guaranteeing that the Federal Government would never abolish slavery in states where it still existed was meant to cover up that there was a 13th amendment that would make him ineligible for citizenship and thus the presidency already in place. (If I recall, this was the only time a president signed a proposed amendment and the act had no legal meaning, but he wanted to make a point early in his presidency so as to try to stop the war.)


From what I've heard, Esquire doesn't really count as a title of nobility in Britain, and so it probably (unfortunately?) wouldn't really strip all lawyers (or even just the pretentious ones) of their citizenship. I believe it would however make accepting campaign contributions from foreign sources a very serious crime, and block those like Rudy Giuliani and Ted Kennedy from holding office. It would certainly block my old congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, as a large potion of her campaign contributions (I think even a majority in one election) came from middle eastern sheiks (several of whom are also believed to have donated to Al Quaeda, yet she claimed that Bush was the one who planned the attack on the world trade center).

TONA sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
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Heh, seeing that the majority of your presidents since WW2 have accepted knighthoods from the crown I would say the chances of TONA being put into law are remote.
A social climbing bunch are they not ?
Oh, except for dubya, I doubt if he was offered one, I can hear Prince Phillip saying to Brown, if you want that sod to have one you present it.
 
Well nobles are given power based on birth. Anyone could pass the bar and become an esquire. So it doesn't really have anything to do with nobility these days.
 
IIRC, this topic was discussed before and basically it's not a noble title, as there's no special legal benefit to having/using/being bestowed with one. It's just a happy honorific. America is full of honorifics, certificates of merit, and bowling trophies. They don't do much other than let you 'toot your own horn'.
 
Baliffs and Marshals are also (sort of) royal terms. Granted, they manage a royal or noble estate. Counties are also a royal term (a piece of land a Count rules). Granted, the size of our counties are more like baronies. Interesting fact - I read somewhere that Kentucky's counties lines were drawn up so that a person could get from one part of the county to the county seat and back in 1 day on horseback.
 
otago said:
For a country that states it has no use for the nobility the US seems to make a lot of use of titles.
I received a letter from a female Florida lawyer four or five years ago and to my amusement she had the letters Esq after her name.

So I checked with my local expert(the wife) on usage of the word esquire and was told that women should never use it, and it is only used by a person addressing others by mail never to be used by one's self.

Do lawyers not find it pretentious to use a title meaning shield carrier, or are their skins that thick that the word pretentious would have no meaning ?

Can only lawyers use the term in the US ?

Why the term honourable for judges ? I take it the US has no privy council that HM heads.

Oh, should the USA be free of all pretentious titles both post and pre nominal ?
Click to expand...

Esquire or Esq. is, in the US, generally considered to be a title an attorney can use if he or she so pleases. Although it is technically a generic term it has become associated with lawyers and therefore if you are not a lawyer and you use it in any fashion that may seem like you are trying to pass off for a lawyer, you could get in trouble.

Amongst attorneys, people are kind of divided on whether to use it. Some people think Esquire sounds kind of douchey. We don't have the easy acronyms doctors or scientists can use, such as MD or PhD. We have to use stuffy things like Attorney-at-Law or Esq. to say "hey, this letter demanding this or that is serious business." I personally don't use esquire unless I am making fun of myself, to be honest. My job is easy in that from my title it is pretty clear that I am an attorney and that the person to whom I am directing my correspondence better listen up.

Actually when you can call yourself a lawyer, attorney, or put Esq. at the end of your name is quite the mini-debate; some feel that graduating from law school is enough, some feel that passing the bar (but prior to swearing in or being passed by the moral character boards) is enough. In my humble opinion, you get none of those titles until you take the oath.

It's not about "nobility" or hoity toity-ness, (well to some people it is) it is about not misrepresenting yourself to the public. People, for whatever reason, expect something from someone when they say they are a lawyer. Either they rely on that advice, or think the person might know what they are talking about, or might think they should be paying that person a higher rate for something. In my opinion whenever someone uses the title they are using it for a reason, and if they don't actually have the qualifications for using that title than they are misrepresenting themselves to the public and in doing so damaging the Bar's reputation and potentially damaging the person relying on that advice.
 
...shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever...

..shall accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility or honour...
Click to expand...

Technically, a title does not have to be one of nobility to violate the constitution. Accepting any title from a foreign power (without a special dispensation from Congress) is unconstitutional, although there isn't an actual punishment for it. Note that is has to come from a foreign power for Article 1 to ban it, and so wouldn't stop someone from just claiming such a title for himself. It isn't quite clear whether the "from any emperor, king, .." part of TONA would have applied to the title part too or only to the part about taking payments, so it isn't quite clear whether it would have made titles not given by foreign powers unconstitutional too.



I suspect that Congress would probably approve of a US President or Senator being knighted by a close ally, so it would probably be a non-issue (at least of they can give this permission after the fact). It would be kind of funny though if congress usually allowed it but decided not to for an unpopular president, and thus ended up removing his citizenship and expelling him from office.



I believe that Georgia's counties were drawn up so that someone could get from anywhere in the county to the county seat within one day (maybe and back, I'm not sure), by either horse or riverboat. I think those counties that are along rivers tend to be a bit bigger for that reason.
 
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