The attitudes of layman and attempts at reform.

Viewed from inside the lower branch, then, the late-sixteenth-century boom in legal business was something of a mixed blessing. The profession had become more centralized and it enjoyed plenty of work, but at the same time the traffic in legal offices and the growth in the numbers of practitioners created serious internal tensions. Even important changes in procedural law arose from internal conflicts rather than from the successful prosecution of agreed programmes of reform. If we turn now to consider public reactions to these same developments, we again find paradox and inconsistency. People were using the courts in ever increasing numbers. So, in one sense, the increase in central court litigation, and the increase in the number of lawyers who helped to make it possible, can be seen as a positive social good, as the spread of a valuable service to greater numbers of people. However, it is clear that most articulate men of the period did not see things in this way. To them, the increase in litigation was a disaster, and the lawyers who brought the cases into the courts a group of dishonest tricksters who were a cancer in the body of the commonwealth. Allegations that attorneys stirred up unnecessary suits were accompanied by accusations that court officials were corrupt and charged extortionate fees. Such views have greatly influenced the picture of the legal profession and the legal system which has come down in the writings of modern historians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]