ADVOCATE

the word used in our Bibles as a translation of the Greek παράκλητος , (see Paraclete ,) which signifies one who exhorts, defends, comforts; also one who prays or intercedes for another. It is an appellation given to the Holy Spirit by our Saviour . (John xiv. 16; xv. 26.) ADVOCATES are mentioned in the 96th, 131st, and 133rd English Canons, as regular members of the Ecclesiastical Courts. The pleaders, or superior practitioners, in all the English and Irish Church Courts are so called. In London they form a corporation, or college, called Doctors’ Commons; because all Advocates must be Doctors of Law, and they formerly lived together in a collegiate manner, with a common table, . The candidate Advocates obtain a fiat from the archbishop of Canterbury, and are admitted by the judge to practise. In Ireland they do not form a college: they must be Doctors of Law, but generally practise in the common law or equity courts, besides. They are admitted to practise by the judge of the Prerogative Court. The pleaders in the supreme courts in Scotland, and generally throughout Europe, are called Advocates. The institution of the order is very ancient. About the time of the emperor Alexander Severus (see Butler’s Life of L’Hopital) three ranks of legal practitioners were established: the orators , who were the pleaders; the advocates , who instructed the orators in points of law; and the cognitores , or pro curat ores , who discharged much the same office as proctors or attorneys now. The first order gradually merged into the second.— Jebb.