Duties and restrictions Clerks were initially tasked only with drafting and accepting pleas, but at one point in the 18th century they worked as full-fledged Assize judges to cut down the workload.Cockburn 1969, p. 321. They eventually headed up an entire department of administrators to keep the Assize running smoothly, and manuals written for Clerks in the late 17th century attest to the complexity of their duties, which only ended when every assize plea had been written, accepted and filed.Cockburn 1969, p. 323. Little is known about their assistants: almost all were legally trained, but their duties and identities remain unknown. Assistants were appointed by the Clerk, with the approval of the Assize Judges. When a barrister became a clerk he was statutorily debarred from acting as a barrister.  Exceptions were occasionally made: at the 1682 Bedford Assize John Luke, the Clerk, represented Robert Chambers for an unspecified offence.
Duties and restrictions Clerks were initially tasked only with drafting and accepting pleas, but at one point from the late 16th to mid 17th centuries they worked as full-fledged Assize judges to cut down the workload.Cockburn 1969, pp. 321–2. They eventually headed up an entire department of administrators to keep the Assize running smoothly, and manuals written for Clerks in the late 17th century attest to the complexity of their duties, which only ended when every assize plea had been written, accepted and filed.Cockburn 1969, p. 323. Little is known about their assistants: almost all were legally trained, but their duties and identities remain unknown. Assistants were appointed by the Clerk, with the approval of the Assize Judges. When a barrister became a clerk he was statutorily debarred from acting as a barrister. Cockburn 1969, p. 321. Exceptions were occasionally made: at the 1682 Bedford Assize John Luke, the Clerk, represented Robert Chambers for an unspecified offence.
R
in the 18th century
from the late 16th to mid 17th centuries
R
p. 321.
pp. 321–2.
A
Cockburn 1969, p. 321.