Proctor
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
Originally and properly, one who manages business for another, by his order; an agent, procurator, or proxy. But the word has been long and extensively used for the agent or officer who makes it his business to promote suits in the courts of admiralty, ecclesiastical, and probate jurisdiction, corresponding to an attorney or solicitor in common-law and equity courts. In England, the proctor was the active practitioner in the' ecclesiastical courts and the court of probate, whose duties corresponded with those of an attorney in the common-law courts. An attorney, prosecuting proceedings in the court of probate for a client, was considered to act as proctor. But by the judicature act, all the officers of this nature in England are now admitted and practise as solicitors of the supreme court of judicature, in whatever division of the court their cause belongs.
2.
An ecclesiastic, chosen to represent a cathedral or collegiate church, or the clergy of a diocese in the lower designates a class of executive ofl Bcers in the universities.
See Cowel; 4 Steph. Com. 326, note.