In the time of Fortescue, sixteen years' continuance in the study of the law was the period of time considered a necessary qualification in candidates for the coif. There seems, however, never to have been a regulation to that effect; and it is certain that persons have often been advanced to this degree before that time. By the common law no one can be appointed a judge of the superior courts, who has not attained the degree of the coif; which degree can only be conferred on a barrister of one of the four inns of court. As soon as any member of an inn of court is raised by royal writ to the state, degree, and dignity of a serjeant-at-law, he ceases to be a member of the society. He removes to a new hall, and appears for the future in the inn of court as a guest (Pearce, 52). The most valuable privilege formerly enjoyed by the serjeants (who, besides the judges, were limited to fifteen in number), was the monopoly of the practice in the Court of Common Pleas. A bill was introduced into Parliament in the year 1755; for the purpose of destroying this monopoly; but it did not pass. In 1834, a warrant under the sign manual of the Crown was directed to the Judges of the Common Pleas, commanding them to open that court to the Bar at large, on the ground that it would tend to the general dispatch of business. This order was received, and the court acted accordingly. But in 1839 the matter was brought before the court by the serjeants, when it was decided that the order was illegal; Tindal, C. J., declaring that, "from time immemorial, the serjeants have enjoyed the exclusive privilege of practising, pleading; and audience in the Court of Common Pleas. Immemorial enjoyment is the most solid of all titles; and we think the warrant of the Crown can no more deprive the serjeant, who holds an immemorial office, of the benefits and privileges which belong to it, than it could alter the administration of the law within the court itself." (10 Bingh. 571; 6 Bingh. N. C. 187, 232, 235.) However, the Statute 9 & 10 Vict. c. 54, has since extended to all barristers the privileges of serjeants in the Court of Common Pleas. FOOTNOTES: