Talk:Esquire

message: Just to point out there is an almost direct contradiction in the 'typical definitions' of an Esquire. Namely that one has to have Captain rank or equivalent or higher in point 14 but yet is open to all officers in point 17.195.92.40.49 11:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military rank 

message: What would be the way of styling "Mr. & Mrs. John Smith," if, in the US, one or both partners were lawyers?  Is there a proper way of doing this without separating the two names?
23 Dec 2005
:There is no different way of writing that in the United States. Although the Juris Doctor degree is a doctorate, lawyers never use the courtesy title "Dr." before their names, and only those who do use the title "Dr." alter their styling to such things as "Dr. and Mrs. John Smith." Lawyers would simply write "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" even if one or both spouses are lawyers. Only when writing their names individually would they append "Esq." CoramVobis 20:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (in response to the initial question on "title") Short answer: hogwash.  Esquire as used by American lawyers doesn't mean a person holds the "title" being referred to above.  For further reading, see reading comprehension. --- Bobak 02:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Especially since there's no king, prince, or foreign state involved! Doops |  talk 00:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style of esq. 

message: I remeber reading somewhere the 'Esquire' was a way of differenciating between generaltions. Ie. In a family you fould have
-John Doe Esq, followed by
-John Doe Jr, followed by
-John Doe III, and So one, Esquire simply being another term for senior.
Is this just my imagination, or has anyone else heard this?
Keeperoftheseal 00:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would seem a v odd way of doing it as the latter two make the Esq on the first redundant.  There are/were two traditional ways: at public school Esq (if used at all) was for the father and the children were Doe ma (maximus) Doe mi (minimus) or major/minor depending on the number of brothers, the former for >2 the latter for 2. In non titled families it used to be the case that if the Esq was used it was by the father, the eldest son would be Mr Doe (as the eldest did not need to differentiate himself) and each other brother was Mr ChristianName Doe. The same would be true for daughters.Alci12 10:42, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative for Jr, Third, ect 

message: Isn't this the tale end of a more interesting hierarchy? There were/are other ranks below Gent, were there not? I thought you could not be a "Gent" if you were in trade, and even below that was Yeoman freeman etc? Mr wasn't the same as "Gent" either was it? We were taught all this in school but I am not sure they teach it any more. --BozMo talk 15:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This looks rather incomplete?

message: This article and Squire are strongly overlapping - see Talk:Squire#A lot of over-lap with Esquire..., Blowup 09:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Esquire or Squire 

message: :"Characters who have utilized the title Esquire (without the aforementioned merit) include such personages as Bill S. Preston, "Esquire""
How do we know he is not so entitled - he could be the male line descendant of a peers younger son or knight. It could be said that he is American, and thus such claims under U.K. law no longer apply, in which case he is just as entitled to style himself esuire as any American lawyer :-). - Matthew238 05:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To be clear on the UK point, these titles are not a matter of "law" at all, even when applied formally. It is more question of formal usage and informal usage. Westmorlandia (talk) 18:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bill S. Preston

message: "just as Mr. should not be assumed" -- what does that mean?  The phrase is nonsensical to me.  Anyway, in the United States, it is common (actually, universal) that any adult male would be called "Mr. (last name)" in formal discourse with strangers (although if a person were known to have an appropriate degree or profession, a title such as "Dr." or "Professor" could be used). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.129.45 (talk) 24 May 2007
In the U.S., 'Esq.' is used socially far less oftsocially en than one would think from the article.  The British use of it is rare and archaic here.  Esq. is used by attorneys (men and women) professionally, and some do use it as well.  An American non-attorney demanding that people add esq. at the end of his name would be laughed at.  No matter its (or his) origins, it would be seen as  pretentious here.  I'd like to change that section of the article (I'd leave the naval exception alone), but I'll wait for other comments in case it would be contentious. Ariadne55 (talk) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have other issues pertaining to the section titled "United States", particularly with the first 5 or 6 paragraphs. Not only can they all be condensed into one or two paragraphs, as they say the same thing over and over, but the last paragraph in question, beginning with "In short,..." is completely against Wikipedia standards. There is no reason for it to be preachy, suggestive, or otherwise imply either consequences or recommended behavior regarding the use of esquire in the U.S.--71.237.73.127 (talk) 19:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems as if it has no legal basis whatsoever, rather like "Grand Wizard".86.42.219.9 (talk) 12:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: United States

message: It seems to be the current practice that female attorneys are styled "Esquire," just like male attorneys. J. J. in PA 00:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I take it you're responding to the question asked by an anonymous editor in the edit summary. Doops |  talk 04:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, shouldn't I? J. J. in PA 21:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, absolutely! I just thought that people who came along to the page and saw your answer might be curious to know what prompted it. :) Doops |  talk 21:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Although I know this to be usual and customary, have we a source?  69.140.152.55 (talk) 07:05, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Female Attorneys 

message: I tried to strike a balance between "meaningful" and "meaningless" by using "little social distinction."
J. J. in PA (talk) 22:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaningless vs. Meaningful 

message: I was wondering, if the eldest son of a younger son of a peer is granted the postnomial Esquire, would this pass to his next brother on his death.  Say Lord John Smith, younger son of Bill Smith, Duke of Somewhere, has a son; he would be Charles Smith, Esq.  Lord John has a second son, plain old David Smith.  Now what if Charles Smith, Esq. dies?  Would his "Esq." pass on to David as the eldest living son of Lord John?  
Sorry if this is confusing, just an American trying to understand the system :) 
Thanks, Prsgoddess187 16:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, as above. Perpetual succession in the above context is the standard remainder heirs male of the body lawfully begotten. ie to Lord John's sons A/B/C the succession is A, A1 (where 1 is As eldest son) A1a (A1s eldest son) failing which to A2, A2a etc failing which to B1,2,3 then C 123 forever. AllsoulsDay (talk) 15:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Other exceptions to this include younger sons and daughters of dukes, who are styled "Lord Firstname Lastname" and "Lady Firstname Lastname" (for example Lord Peter Wimsey and Lady Helen Wimsey, younger son and daughter of the Duke of Denver).  Anyway, this question isn't about younger children of peers, it's about the eldest sons of younger children of peers. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 07:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eldest sons of younger sons of peers... 

message: The Queen's website is www.royal.gov.uk.  Googling this search phrase: Ms -sclerosis site:royal.gov.uk returns 81 results.  The phrase is used in Buckingham palace press releases and the Court Circular.  Here are two recent examples:
Press Releases & Speeches, 13 April 2008, in which Her Majesty appoints Ms Bryce as the Governor-General of Australia.
Court Circular, 7 March 2006, which states, "The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh gave a State Banquet this evening in honour of The President of the Federative Republic of Brazil and Senhora Lula da Silva... The following had the honour of being invited: ...
Ms. Jane Lichtenstein and Ms. Rhona Shaw... Ms. Susan Catchpole... Ms. Christina Oiticica... [and] Ms. Roberta Marquez". Ariadne55 (talk) 23:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Queen 

message: First, masons, I recieve letters from the grand lodge of england which read "Esq" at the end 
as well as the summons from our main lodge which also uses the suffix. And, there are many "official"
masons titles but esq is used for all bretheren.
Second, on the subject of US gender. 
In the UK as the article suggests, the title is reserved for men. 
I reiceved a letter from a US solicitor who is female who uses the term Esq. 
Isnt that a bit like a woman calling herself Sir? Is it normal practice in the US for women to assume this title? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.95.21 (talk) 10:08, 18 September, 2008 (UTC)
:In the U.S., the suffix esq. doesn't mean sir, it means attorney, just as Dr. means doctor. It's not something an attorney assumes, it's something her state bar association grants to her. It's how her colleagues, the courts, and anyone who does business with her will routinely refer to her. In the U.S., this is standard practice to such an extent that it would look like a typo to omit it. By the way, new sections should go at the bottom of the talk page. Using the New Section tab at the top of the page should format it that way for you in future. Ariadne55 (talk) 16:04, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting - thanks for this.  Suppose that I, a British gentleman and university graduate (and therefore arguably entitled to the style Esq in the UK), but not a qualified lawyer of any sort, were to visit the US and happen to use the suffix Esq there.  Could I be prosecuted for misrepresentation?  Do the state bars claim sole right to grant this suffix in the US, or are they just the only organisations which currently do?  This is entirely a hypothetical question, by the way - I'm not expecting to visit the US in the near future, and I don't write Esq after my name anyway - I'm just curious as to the exact legal standing of the term in the US. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You could visit the U.S. and sign Esq. after your name, or anything else you liked (King Nicholas of Jacksonia) as long as there was no intent to defraud anyone. However, if you presented yourself with the honorific Esq. and then gave what a reasonable person would hear as legal advice, you might be criminally or civilly liable for practicing law without a license. The state bars don't have any control over non-lawyers. The state bars' ethics committees that have dealt with the usage of esq. were primarily concerned with regulating how lawyers used "Esq." in non-legal business dealings where it could mislead others. I've been wondering, in the UK, if barristers use "Esq." after their names, but there's an aversion to using "Esq." for women, what do women barristers do? Ariadne55 (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah ok, that makes sense, thanks.  So I guess it's more or less analogous to how the title Dr is used, in both the UK and the US: in formal situations and on official paperwork I'm Dr Jackson (I have a PhD in pure mathematics) but I'm generally careful not to let anyone mistake me for a qualified physician - indeed, I could be prosecuted if I knowingly or deliberately misrepresented myself thus.  Barristers in the UK don't generally tend to use Esq after their name, except insofar as any professional man might in a formal context.  Women don't use Esq, in exactly the same way that women don't call themselves Mr.  There isn't really a specific postnominal that marks one as being a lawyer, except for law degrees like LLB or LLM, or QC (for very senior barristers and, recently, very senior solicitors). -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 20:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

text: In my experience in the U.S., "Esq." is often used when sending written correspondence in reply to a letter from a young man (i.e., a younger teenager). At least in my own experience. Svanslyck (talk) 23:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

text: It also bears repeating, as stated above, that "If you call yourself 'John Smith, Esq.' you might be taken for a lawyer but you might equally be taken for a pompous twit." Some lawyers would be well served to know this. Svanslyck (talk) 00:04, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender for US and Freemasons 

message: The Ohio Supreme Court is the licensing authority of attorneys in Ohio (as opposed to the bar association as in some other states). As others have mentioned, and as the article states, it does not "grant" the title esquire to anyone. In 2010, however, and possibly earlier, it did specifically deny use the title in its order in a case involving the unauthorized practice of law. See Disciplinary Counsel v. Brown  Svanslyck (talk) 01:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting - thanks very much for this.  I have no legal training or qualifications myself, but from a quick read of the document you linked to, I'm inclined to interpret it as the Ohio Supreme Court saying "you've used the suffix Esq so as to represent yourself as a licensed attorney, which you're not, so we're now issuing an injunction preventing you specifically from using it at all" rather than "the suffix Esq means licensed attorney, nobody can use it without our agreement".  But it's entirely possible that that judgment has set some sort of legal precedent in Ohio, and now only licensed attorneys can use Esq. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 07:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The best way to approach court opinions is to read the ink part of the opinion only, and not the paper part. I think your interpretation is right on the mark. Svanslyck (19:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What if I am John Smith Esq., of England, and find myself before the Ohio courts - will the judge call me "Mr Smith" or "John Smith, Esquire"? Why can't Americans just stick to the demotic Mister and leave the rest of us in the middle ages, where we are much happier?86.42.219.9 (talk) 12:11, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Ohio Supreme Court

message: I started out just to demand a citation for the claim that lawyers in some States are formally addressed as "Honorable", but the section had so many other problems that I couldn't leave it at that.  Some of my changes are admittedly matters of style and taste, but most I consider necessary corrections.  Here are my rationales, starting at the top:
:*"U.S." for "US":  Leaving the standard punctuation out gives a casual impression I consider inappropriate in an encyclopedia, so I put them in.  If Wikipedia has a different house rule, whereby "United States" is abbreviated without punctuation, I defer and apologize for not knowing that.
:*"title" for "suffix":  Post-nominal letters denoting a profession, an academic degree, a title, etc., are not suffixes, as I understand that term.  The -ing in riding is a suffix.  The others are post-nominal letters in general, and are professions, titles, degrees, etc., in particular cases.
:*"members of the legal profession" for "lawyers":  Because the article goes on to mention other officers who may be considered esquires, all of whom are connected with the work of the legal profession, but who are not necessarily lawyers, the broader term seemed more appropriate.
:*"Additionally, in some States," for "Some states also address their", and so on:  "States", when it refers to members of the United States, is customarily capitalized, inasmuch as means something distinct from the common noun state, which may properly be applied to any political sovereignty.  Endowing a political sovereignty with the power of speech and having it address its ministerial officers as anything seems incongruous to me.  Again, I maintain that Esquire is a title, not a suffix, and when it follows a name, it is almost always abbreviated.  (The title is almost exclusively confined to writing, and it is almost never written out in full.)
:*"The title Esquire is not allocated . . ." and so on:  First, an allocation seems to require a person, group, or thing to receive whatever is being allocated, so I inserted some categories of potential recipients.  The phrase, "not unlawful to use," is inelegant, and is also not entirely correct, since the article goes on to explain precisely that using the title can in fact be unlawful, if it is part of a course of conduct that amounts to the unauthorized practice of law.  I accordingly rephrased the statement, and qualified it with per se.  
::It now occurs to me that two different categories of unlawful act are relevant here: the unauthorized practice of law, which, though often a criminal offense, may be committed with the most noble of intentions; and the fraudulent impersonation of a lawyer, which by definition is maliciously deceitful, and is always a crime; but I don't have time to go off on that tangent.
:*". . . use by an unlicensed person . . . can subject him . . . ." for "a person using the term. . . may subject the person . . . ."  The original sentence was garbled, probably as a result of unfinished editing, but a contributing factor seems to have been the contortions produced by desperate attempt to avoid grammatical gender when referring to a person whose sex is unknown or irrelevant. I straightened the sentence out and used the masculine, balancing it in the next sentence with the feminine.
:*". . . use by an unlicensed person may be evidence of the unauthorized practice of law . . ." for ". . . using the term "Esquire" in a deliberate attempt to engage in the unauthorized practice of law . . . .":  Even in such a case, the offense is not the use of the title Esquire, but the unauthorized practice.  The use of Esquire may be evidence that the culprit intended to practice law without a license; but it is not, in itself, the practice of law.  (It could, of course, be a fraudulent act, but the article doesn't mention fraud, and I don't have time to add it.)
 
:*Deletion of "All US court cases questioning the use of the term Esquire involve someone who was actually engaged in unauthorized law practice.":  The assertion is almost certainly incorrect, since it would mean that every single one of those defendants was guilty.  I read the article cited for that proposition, and found nothing even remotely resembling it.
:*"The concern is . . . .":  Creating an impression that somebody is claiming to have a law license is not the evil to be prevented here.  The false claim is the problem; or, looked at from another angle, the evil to be prevented is the false impression that phony lawyer has a law license, not that she claims to have one.  I went back to the article cited and found there a sentence that started with, "The concern is . . . ."  It made more sense that what was in the article, but it also skipped a step logically, so I adapted it and filled in the logical gap as best I could.
:*Deletion of sentence on calling lawyers "Hon.":  I've never heard of such a custom in over twenty-five years of practice as a lawyer, in several jurisdictions.  If I thought the sentence was worth fixing, I would contend that the qualification, "who are members of that jurisdiction's bar" is even less likely to be correct than the basic assertion.  But this article isn't about the various honorific styles that lawyers may be given, nor is it about the particular style, Honorable.  It's about Esquire, and that sentence wasn't.
:*Citation needed for "Honorifics are not used with courtesy titles . . . ."  The specific point of the sentence, that you don't use an honorific with Esquire, is quite correct.  The general contention that you don't use honorifics with courtesy titles very likely is also correct, but it's not supported by the authority cited.
Jdcrutch (talk) 22:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrote the "United States / Legal Profession" Section 

message: 2.96.177.188 suggests in modifications to the introduction to the use of Esquire in the UK that it became a courtesy title of notable barristers.  This is mistaken in its presentation on two fronts:  Firstly, all barristers, not just notable ones, were allowed the style of Esquire as a courtesy by virtue of their holding of the degree of the Utter Bar.  Secondly, by turning to the law dictionary as a source, the editor ignores the fact that the dictionary only highlights the passages of the sources consulted in respect of matters relevant to the law or lawyers, as it is a legal dictionary its concern extends no further.  While it is right to say that the style of Esquire was extended to barristers, it was not exclusive to them, which the preamble suggests.  Indeed, the source itself quoted by the editor clarifies that also ranked as Esquires are 'The eldest son of knights and other peers who must wait until, they inherit their father's title' and 'esquires ex officio, given historically to those who hold positions of public trust'.  The edit is inaccurate as it implies notable barristers are the principal form of esquires in the UK, which is nonsense, and shows a lack of knowledge of the UK position.  Debrett's was quoted as a correction, showing that Esquires still exist in the official Order of Precedence.  Here, this is not simply a reference to barristers.  For these reasons, the edit is undone. Editor8888 (talk) 19:28, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: UK preamble

message: May be useful to quote/cite Νομο-λεξικον by Blount.
—DIV (137.111.13.4 (talk) 09:33, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Νομο-λεξικον 

message: IPA transcription should be /ɪˈskwajər/ 2A01:CB1C:14A:9900:8449:1C43:151E:44A8 (talk) 15:11, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA transcription 

message: Is any relation with verb "acquire"? If it is, why this verb is never even mentioned? -- Nashev (talk) 09:03, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Acquire