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Judge Bush Receives Serjeant of the Inn Award at Inns of Court Ceremony

By Michael C. Smith

I attended a joint meeting of the Metroplex American Inns of Court last night at which the Eastern District of Texas' own Magistrate Judge Don Bush received the Serjeant of the Inn award from the Paul Brown American Inn of Court in Sherman.  Other recipients of the honor included Jim Cowles by the Patrick E. Higginbotham Inn, Thomas William Mayo from the William "Mac" Taylor Inn, Roland Johnson (currently president of the State Bar of Texas) from the Eldon B. Mahon Inn, Mark X. Mullin from the John C. Ford Inn, and the Hon. Marilea Lewis from the Annette Stewart Inn (which also hosted the event).

The Inns of Court in Dallas and Fort Worth established the Serjeants' Inn award to honor their members for long and meritorious service to the Inns of Court and to the legal profession. Each of the Inns in Dallas and Fort Worth (which apparently includes Sherman) can nominate one member each year and these nominations are announced at the joint Inns of Court meeting in January.

The origins of the award dates back to a peculiarity of the English court system in the late 15th century.  The Serjeants' Inn in the English Inns of Court system consisted of those barristers who had distinguished themselves by their service to their profession and accomplishments as barristers. A serjeant-at-law was a superior rank of barrister - in fact until 1875 only serjeants could be appointed judges (the name serjeant is actually corruption of the original Latin servientes, literally a servant of the law). When a barrister was appointed a serjeant, he left his Inn of Court and joined Serjeant's Inn.  As one the speakers noted last night, that part of the tradition was not retained in the Texas award - the honorees remain in their Inn.  The picture at right shows the last of the the three Serjeants' Inns, this one on Chancery Lane in London (the first was abandoned in 1498 and the second burned down in the Great Fire in 1666).  The Chancery Lane location was similarly abandoned in 1877 and the members returned to their original Inns.  So the Paul Brown Inn gets to keep Judge Bush.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).