Definition
A Latin term appearing in older legal texts and maxims with two related clusters of meaning: (1) a turn, change, or occasion — as in the phrase *hac vice*, meaning "for this turn" or "on this occasion"; and (2) a place, stead, office, or duty — carrying the sense of substitution or standing in the position of another. Both meanings flow from the same root concept of substitution or rotation: something that takes the place of something else, whether in time (a particular occasion) or in function (a role or office).
The term is not used as a standalone legal concept in modern practice but appears embedded in established Latin phrases, particularly *hac vice* (most commonly encountered in *pro hac vice*) and in compound constructions such as *vice* (as a prefix meaning "in place of"), with which it shares derivation.
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Common Confusion
VICIS and VICE (as a prefix): The standalone noun *vicis* and the prefixed form *vice-* (as in *vice president*, *vice versa*, or *pro hac vice*) are etymologically the same word, but researchers encountering *vicis* in a historical text may not immediately recognize the connection. *Vicis* is the genitive form that generates the English prefix *vice-* (in place of) and the phrase structure *hac vice* (for this occasion). Do not confuse *vicis* in its "occasion/turn" sense with its "stead/office" sense — both are present in the historical record, and the context of the surrounding phrase is essential to accurate reading.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth century legal materials — treatises, pleadings, equity records, and ecclesiastical or civil law sources — will encounter *vicis* embedded in Latin phrases rather than as a freestanding term. The critical navigational point is that *vicis* almost never appears alone in legal instruments; its legal meaning is always unlocked by the surrounding phrase.
The most practically significant construction is *pro hac vice* (literally "for this occasion"), which survives robustly in modern American procedural law as the mechanism by which an out-of-jurisdiction attorney is admitted to appear in a particular case. Researchers tracing the history of that doctrine will find *vicis* in its foundational sense. Courts and commentators writing before the twentieth century frequently used *hac vice* or *pro hac vice* without translation, assuming Latin literacy in the reader.
The "stead/office" sense of *vicis* is less frequently encountered as a distinct phrase but underlies a large family of legal terms and titles (*vice chancellor*, *vice admiral*, *vicarious*). When reading older equity or admiralty materials, awareness that *vice-* constructions carry the specific legal weight of delegated or substituted authority — not merely a secondary or deputy role — can affect interpretation.
Corpus researchers should be alert to the spelling variant *vices* in older printed texts where typesetting conventions may render the final *-is* ambiguously. Cross-reference any encountered phrase against the *vice* entry and the specific compound phrase entry (e.g., *pro hac vice*, *vice chancellor*) before drawing interpretive conclusions.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives *vicis* a compact but accurate treatment, identifying both principal meanings — change/turn and place/stead/office — and correctly cross-referencing *vice*. Burrill's entry is sufficient as a pointer but does not develop the distinction between the two semantic clusters or explain how context governs which meaning applies. No divergence exists between historical sources on the core meanings; the term is stable. What historical dictionaries uniformly omit is practical guidance on the phrase-bound nature of the term's legal use, which is the researcher's real challenge. The entry for *vice* in most historical legal dictionaries carries more analytical weight and should be consulted alongside this one.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: *Pro Hac Vice*; *Vice Chancellor*.
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