Proctor - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition proctor

Definition :

Proctor [fr. procurator, Lat.], a manager of another person's affairs; also a university official of Oxford or Cambridge having disciplinary powers over members of the university.

Proctors in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts formerly discharged duties similar to those of solicitors and attorneys in other courts, as and being a separate body of practitioners. The title still survives, but the separation no longer exists. Owing to the abolition of the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts in causes matrimonial and testamentary, the (English) Court of Probate Act, 1857 (2 & 21 Vict. c. 77), ss. 43, 105, 106, and c. 85, s. 69, awarded compensation to the proctors, and admitted them to practise, not only in the Probate and Divorce Courts, but also in the Courts of Equity and Common Law. The Solicitors Act, 1877, s. 17, allows solicitors to practise as proctors; the Jud. Act, 1925, s. 256 (1), replacing Jud. Act, 1873 (s. 87), gives them the title of 'Solicitors of the Supreme Court'; and the Solicitors Act, 1932, s. 44, allows solicitors to appear as proctors in ecclesiastical courts and exercise the former rights of proctors.