Definition
Attachment of privilege is a historical English procedural device with two distinct applications:
1. As a method of commencing suit: A process by which a person entitled to the privilege of a particular court — typically an attorney, officer of court, or other privileged party — invoked that privilege to compel an opposing party to litigate in that same court. Rather than proceeding by ordinary writ, the privileged party initiated the action through an attachment grounded in their status. The adverse party was thereby drawn into a forum they could not otherwise be required to attend.
2. As a writ for arrest in a privileged place: A writ directed at apprehending a person located within a privileged or protected location — a place ordinarily immune from ordinary process — on the authority of a specific privilege that overrode the usual protection of that place.
Both uses share the same structural logic: privilege, rather than ordinary jurisdictional or territorial rules, supplies the legal foundation for the attachment. The term is now obsolete in active practice, appearing almost exclusively in historical English common law materials.
Common Confusion
The term contains two words — "attachment" and "privilege" — each carrying heavy independent freight in legal research, and the compound should not be read as either alone. This is not a general attachment of property (a prejudgment remedy against assets), nor is it a testimonial or evidentiary privilege. Researchers encountering the term in historical sources must resist mapping it onto either of those modern categories. It is a sui generis procedural device of the old English court system, tied to the now-abolished personal privileges of court officers and members.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a research trap precisely because it looks familiar. A researcher scanning early English reports, Tidd's Practice, or Stephen's Pleading will encounter "attachment of privilege" in procedural discussions and may mistakenly classify it under modern attachment doctrine or privilege doctrine. Neither framework applies.
The device was tied to the personal privilege of attorneys and court officers to litigate exclusively in their own courts — a privilege abolished with the restructuring of English courts and having no American successor. American sources, including Rapalje & Lawrence, briefly note that American property attachment law varies significantly by state, but this is a separate body of law entirely. Do not conflate the two simply because Rapalje & Lawrence's entry transitions between them.
In the Law Mind corpus, researchers working on pre-19th-century English procedure, the history of the English common law courts, or the development of attachment as a procedural mechanism will encounter this term most often. It connects to the broader history of concurrent jurisdiction among the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, each of which had officers who enjoyed the privilege underlying this writ. Understanding attachment of privilege helps explain why personal privilege could function as a jurisdictional lever — a concept largely foreign to modern procedure.
For researchers working on American materials: unless the source is explicitly discussing English practice by reference, this term should not appear in post-colonial American legal texts in its historical sense. Its appearance in American digests and dictionaries is almost entirely derivative of English sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Bouvier's are nearly verbatim — both citing Termes de la Ley and offering the same two-clause definition. This is a classic instance of Bouvier's being the likely intermediary source and Black's following without significant independent research. Neither dictionary elaborates on the mechanics, the courts involved, or the abolition of the privilege.
Burrill's is meaningfully superior for research purposes. It identifies the specific procedural context — that attorneys and other court officers were formerly privileged to sue in their own courts, and that the attachment of privilege was the mechanism by which those suits commenced. Critically, Burrill cites 1 Tidd's Practice at pages 37–38 and Stephen's Pleading (American edition, 1824), giving researchers a direct path to primary procedural authority. Burrill also signals, with the phrase "also anciently so called," that the term's second meaning (arrest in a privileged place) may be the older usage, though his entry is incomplete as transcribed.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds the most structural clarity, explicitly separating the two meanings with numbered sub-definitions and confirming that both meanings derive from the same source — Termes de la Ley — while also noting that American property attachment law operates on entirely different principles. This is the most analytically useful of the four dictionary treatments.
None of the historical dictionaries addresses the abolition of this practice or explains which English court reforms ended it. Researchers should consult Tidd's Practice directly for the procedural mechanics and look to the history of the Judicature Acts for the broader institutional context of its disappearance.
Jurisdictional Note
Attachment of privilege is exclusively an English common law device and was never adopted as a distinct procedural mechanism in American courts. American jurisdictions developed their own attachment and prejudgment remedy doctrines independently, governed by state statute and, where federal courts are concerned, by federal procedural rules. The term appears in American legal dictionaries only as a historical import.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia: Attachment, Garnishment, and Prejudgment Remedies (civpro_118) — for the modern doctrine that shares the "attachment" label but differs fundamentally in purpose and structure.