Bar (law)

This article is about the legal term. For professional organizations of lawyers, see bar association. For other uses, see bar (disambiguation).
In this courtroom in Worcester, Massachusetts (United States), the bar is represented by a physical barrier (with swinging gate doors), separating the benches reserved for spectators from the judge's bench and lawyers' tables.

In law, the bar is the legal profession as an institution. The term is a metonym for the line (or "bar") that separates the parts of a courtroom reserved for spectators and those reserved for participants in a trial such as lawyers.

In the United Kingdom, the term "the bar" refers only to the professional organization for barristers (referred to in Scotland as advocates); the other type of UK lawyer, solicitors, have their own body, the Law Society. Correspondingly, being "called to the bar" refers to admission to the profession of barristers, not solicitors.