In English law (and other countries which adopt the rule), the cab-rank rule is the obligation of a barrister to accept any work in a field in which they profess themselves competent to practise, at a court at which they normally appear, and at their usual rates. The rule derives its name from the tradition by which a hackney carriage driver at the head of a queue of taxicabs is obliged to take the first passenger requesting a ride.
23-483: Cambridge Carrier may refer to Thomas Hobson (postal carrier) An experimental development of the Oxford Tracked Carrier Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Cambridge Carrier . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to
46-489: A country house, which, under the name Anglesey Abbey, now belongs to the National Trust . Hobson had acquired lands around Chesterton, Cambridgeshire by the late 1590s, but by 1608 had assigned them to his son Thomas. Thomas junior predeceased his father (d.1627), and the lands were subsequently bequeathed to the latter’s son Charles. Hobson lived at Chesterton Hall in 1627, four years before his death in 1631. Hobson
69-586: A lesser tributary of the River Cam fed by springs at Nine Wells five miles south of Cambridge. Hobson is commemorated at Nine Wells on a nineteenth-century obelisk and in Cambridge on a seventeenth-century stone fountain at the conduit head. The fountain was moved there in 1856 from its original location in the Market Square after a fire in 1849, when it was replaced by a cast iron drinking fountain . Upstream
92-532: A prominent and wealthy barrister with links to the leader of the Whig Party, Charles James Fox , who was himself a sympathiser with French revolutionaries. Erskine – against the advice of his friends, who suspected that it would likely affect his political career – took on the case of Thomas Paine , who was being tried in absentia for seditious libel for the publication of the second part of his Rights of Man . Erskine's speech while defending Paine – unsuccessfully –
115-556: Is noted for a passage on the duty of barristers to take on even unpopular cases: I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English Bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and
138-479: Is set out at rC29 of the Bar Standards Board Handbook. It states that if the barrister receives instructions from a professional client and the instructions are appropriate taking into account their experience, seniority and/or field of practice, they must (subject to the exceptions in rC30) accept those instructions irrespective of: The ethos of the rule is thought to originate with Thomas Erskine ,
161-640: The Old Bailey in London. Due to difficulties in instructing any counsel willing to represent the defendants, the Bar was reminded of its duties under the cab-rank rule. In 2006, a barrister was reprimanded by the Bar Standards Board for refusing to act for a gay client, due to his Christian beliefs. The cab-rank rule has been adopted by a number of other common law jurisdictions, including Australia – but, notably, not
184-470: The University of Cambridge . The George Inn in Cambridge where Hobson's stable was situated was located on the current grounds of St Catharine's College and the stables were on the site of the current college chapel. Hobson soon discovered that his fastest horses were the most popular, and thus overworked. So as not to exhaust them, he established a strict rotation system, allowing customers to rent only
207-455: The 'cab rank' rule a major threat to justice", arguing that the rule protected lawyers from the stigma of defending an unpopular client. In 2023, more than one hundred lawyers, including six KCs , declared that they would not serve certain clients in light of the severe consequences of global warming . The Bar Standards Board and the Bar Council immediately issued press releases reaffirming
230-579: The United States. Addressing the continued necessity for the rule in 2010, the Law Society of England and Wales , which represents solicitors, together with the Bar Council questioned its necessity, highlighting increases in competition. The Bar Standards Board requested and received an independent report on the cab-rank rule. After reviewing this report the board issued a press release titled "Removal of
253-489: The conduit is flanked by gardens adjoining Brookside and by the Cambridge University Botanic Garden . Downstream from the conduit head, the watercourse divides into four separate branches, mostly in underground culverts ; the original drainage runnels on Trumpington Street, the oldest branch, are still visible on either side of the road. Hobson bought Anglesey Priory in 1625 and converted it into
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#1733094379598276-478: The creation of the London Hackney Carriages Act 1843 ). Hobson is best remembered in the English vernacular as something of a miser, but he was actually a very public-spirited man. He funded the construction of Hobson's Conduit (or "Hobson's Brook"), a man-made watercourse built in 1614 to provide clean drinking water to the population of Cambridge. The conduit channelled water from Vicar's Brook,
299-432: The expression, was a very honourable man, for I shall ever call the man so who gets an estate honestly. Mr. Tobias Hobson was a carrier; and, being a man of great abilities and invention, and one that saw where there might good profit arise, though the duller men overlooked it, this ingenious man was the first in this island who let out hackney-horses. He lived in Cambridge; and, observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner
322-488: The horse which stood next to the stable-door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice: from whence it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say Hobson's choice. This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn he used in Bishopsgate-street, with an hundred pound bag under his arm, with this inscription upon
345-417: The intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cambridge_Carrier&oldid=1209794657 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Thomas Hobson (postal carrier) Thomas Hobson (c. 1544 – 1 January 1631)
368-404: The nation: [A]n advocate, by the sacred duty of his connection with his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none other. To save that client by all expedient means - to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself - is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm,
391-498: The next horse in line. This policy, "this one or none" ("take it or leave it"), has come to be known as "Hobson's choice". It is not an absence of choice, rather choosing one thing or nothing. In legal jargon, Hobson's Choice is known to barristers as the " cab-rank rule "; the gentleman's agreement that a barrister take a client who is first in line, whether the barrister likes it or not. This may come from Hobson's choice of renting out hackney horses strictly by rote (long before
414-593: The said bag: Whatever tradesman will try the experiment, and begin the day after you publish this my discourse to treat his customers all alike, and all reasonably and honestly, I will ensure him the same success. Hobson arranged the delivery of mail between London and Cambridge up and down the Old North Road , operating a lucrative livery stable outside the gates of St Catharine's College, Cambridge as an innkeeper . When his horses were not needed to deliver mail, he rented them to students and academic staff of
437-460: The subject arraigned in the court where he daily sits to practise, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end. An important element of the cab-rank rule was outlined by Lord Brougham during the Trial of Queen Caroline , where he asserted the paramount importance of advocates' zealous defence of their clients, even in circumstances where such spirited defence could threaten the very safety of
460-492: The suffering, the torment, the destruction, which he may bring upon any other; nay, separating, even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, he must go on reckless of the consequences, if his fate it should unhappily be, to involve his country in confusion for his client. In the 1970s, the cab-rank rule was tested. The Birmingham Six , supposedly bombers from the Irish Republican Army , were due to be tried at
483-574: Was an English carrier, best known as the origin of the expression Hobson's choice . The term "Hobson's choice" originated in the mid-seventeenth century, after Hobson's death. The poet John Milton made Hobson, and the phrase, well known, by satirising him several times in mock epitaphs . Here lieth one who did most truly prove That he could never die when he could move Joseph Addison and his co-editor Richard Steele commented on Hobson in The Spectator : Mr. Tobias Hobson, from whom we have
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#1733094379598506-558: Was buried at St Bene't's Church , Cambridge, near the chancel —although without inscription or monument. All 8 of Hobson's children were baptized in the church, and in 1626 he donated a 1617 edition of the King James Bible to the church (now held by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge , of which Hobson was a benefactor). Hobson Street, in Cambridge city centre, is named after Thomas Hobson, and Hobson's Passage takes its name from Hobson Street. Cab-rank rule The cab rank rule
529-416: Was to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to borrow, as they have done since the death of this worthy man. I say, Mr. Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattle, always ready and fit for travelling; but, when a man came for a horse he was led into the stable, where there was great choice, but he obliged him to take
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