Lawyer

James Wilson,
a lawyer and signer from Pennsylvania

Lawyers were a growing population in 18^th century America.  A fair number of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were actually lawyers.  With the expansion of commerce, so, too, did the legal profession.  But lawyers were not the professional class we think of today, but it’s on the path.  You may have attended college in England or one of the colonial colleges (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, King’s College, the College of William & Mary), but would not have formally studied law.  You may actually be self-taught (like Patrick Henry).  Most likely, even after that college education, you studied with a practicing lawyer and learned from them.  Law was often a path to other things and you might already be involved in politics.

And by the way, you are a man.  There was like one woman lawyer in the American colonies  at this time, and you are not her.

The question is, where are you from?  As you can see from these brief bios of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, you can pretty much pick where you are from.  Before you even pick your name, you will want to pick where you are from.


And yes, you do wear a powdered wig in the courtroom.