Definition
A special pleader was a practitioner in the English legal system whose professional role was to provide legal opinions — whether verbal or written — on statements submitted by clients or solicitors, and to draft pleadings in civil or criminal matters, as well as other procedural documents outside the ordinary course of practice. The role was distinct from both barristers and solicitors: special pleaders occupied a recognized intermediate position, advising on the technical architecture of litigation without necessarily appearing at the bar.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Someone who uses special pleading; a person who argues that a particular case is an exception to a generally accepted rule, without justification or relevant basis — often used pejoratively to suggest intellectually dishonest argumentation.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 treats the term primarily in its English legal sense, reflecting a period when the professional category was still within living memory.
The gap here is sharp and historically important. In legal usage, a special pleader was a skilled, formally recognized practitioner — a term of professional distinction. In modern common usage, the phrase has shed its legal meaning almost entirely and now functions as a criticism, implying sophistry or self-serving reasoning. A researcher encountering the phrase in modern non-legal writing should not assume any connection to the historical professional role.
Common Confusion
Special pleader should not be confused with special pleading as a procedural concept. Special pleading (the practice) refers to the technical craft of drafting pleadings that go beyond a simple traverse or denial — alleging new matter to avoid or justify a claim. A special pleader was the professional who performed this craft. The two terms are connected but distinct: one names a person, the other names a practice. In older texts, the phrase "at the bar" is a further marker of distinction — special pleaders who were not called to the bar held a subordinate professional status and were required to obtain annual certificates, whereas those at the bar could transition into full advocacy.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost entirely historical and English in character. Researchers will encounter it chiefly in pre-twentieth-century English legal texts, treatises on common law procedure, and commentary on the old common law pleading system. Several navigational points are worth holding:
First, the role of special pleader was a product of the common law pleading system — the elaborate, formal structure of declarations, pleas, replications, and rejoinders that governed English civil litigation prior to the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875. When that system was reformed and simplified, the professional niche that supported special pleaders largely collapsed. The term effectively disappears from active professional use after that period.
Second, the distinction Bouvier draws — that special pleaders not at the bar were required to take out annual certificates — is procedurally significant for legal historians. It marks a tiered system of professional licensing that has no direct American equivalent.
Third, American researchers should approach this term carefully. The common law pleading system was received in many American jurisdictions, and American treatises and courts do reference "special pleading" as a practice, but the distinct professional role of the special pleader as a licensed drafter-for-hire did not transplant to the American bar in the same form. American lawyers performed analogous functions, but the formalized intermediate category did not.
Fourth, be alert to the modern semantic drift noted above. Any use of "special pleader" in post-twentieth-century legal scholarship that lacks clear historical context is likely using the term in its modern pejorative sense, not its professional one.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's are in close agreement — all three trace directly to the same primary source, Chitty's General Practice (2 Chit. Pr. 42 / 2 Chitt. Gen. Pr. 42), and their definitions are nearly identical. Bouvier adds one detail the others omit: that special pleaders not at the bar were required to take out annual certificates, which is a meaningful procedural distinction. None of the three historical dictionaries address the professional decline of the role following English procedural reform, nor do they speak to the American context. Burrill's version is the most compressed. All three treat the role as an active English professional category, consistent with their publication dates in the nineteenth century, when the role was still operative. No meaningful divergence exists among these sources; the synthesis confirms a stable, agreed-upon historical definition.
Jurisdictional Note
The special pleader as a professional category is specific to English legal practice under the pre-Judicature Acts common law system. American jurisdictions received the practice of special pleading but did not formally institutionalize the separate professional role. Researchers working in American sources should not expect to find the term used in its English professional sense.