From Legal Representation to Advocacy: Attorneys and Clients in the Ottoman Nizamiye Courts

Professional attorneyship emerged in the Ottoman Empire in tandem with the consolidation of the Nizamiye (regular) court system during the late 19th century. This article analyzes the emergence of an Ottoman legal profession, emphasizing two developments. First, the Nizamiye courts advanced a formalist legal culture, exhibited, inter alia, by the expansion of legal procedure. Whereas the pre-19th century court of law was highly accessible to lay litigants, the proceduralization of court proceedings in the 19th century limited the legibility of the judicial experience to legal experts, rendering legal counseling almost indispensible in civil and criminal litigation. Second, the reformers made efforts to render state-granted legal license a sign of professional competence, presenting a formal distinction between the old agents (vekils), who lacked formal legal training, and the professional trial attorneys (dava vekils). In practice, however, lawyers of both categories had to adapt to the Nizamiye formalist culture.