Prisyazhnyy poverennyy

Reading notes

• Marriage Ten or Fifteen Years On §4 assistant to a sworn attorney

  A prisyazhnyy poverennyy ("sworn attorney") was a licensed barrister under the 1864 judicial reform; Balalaikin claims this respectable legal title while in fact working as a marriage broker's commission agent, a deliberately incongruous credential.

• Two Letters §5 sworn attorney

  The formal title for a barrister admitted to practice before the reformed courts of Alexander II's 1864 judicial reform, cited here by the nephew as proof of his new standing and income.

• The Attorney I. N. Moshennikov §1 handles cases. In the event of a guilty verdict, offers bail

  The speaker of this mock advertisement is a \emph{prisyazhnyy poverennyy} ("sworn attorney"), the formal title for a barrister admitted to practice before Russia's reformed post-1864 courts; the joke, carried in the story's title, is that this particular attorney is named Moshennikov -- built on \emph{moshennik}, "swindler."

• Visiting Cards §10 помощник присяжного поверенного

  Assistant to a sworn attorney -- a junior, unlicensed rung on the ladder to full barrister status created by the 1864 judicial reform; even an assistant's post is worth printing on a card in this company.

• The Strays §1 Присяжные поверенные

  Kozyavkin and Laev are both prisyazhnye poverennye, sworn barristers admitted to practice before the reformed courts established by Alexander II's judicial reform of 1864 -- respectable, prosperous professional men, which makes their drunken misadventure funnier by contrast with their dignity.

• The Strays §35 кандидат прав

  "Candidate of law" (kandidat prav) was the university law degree that qualified a graduate to enter legal practice; Kozyavkin's appeal to his professional credentials and visiting card carries no weight at all with the furious, unimpressed keeper of the henhouse he has just wrecked.