Accounts of the legal scene in Asia often refer in passing to the activities of a shadowy set of backstage characters encountered in the peripheries of the law. The assessment of the peripheral figures has varied. Only very recently have they received much direct attention from students of Asian social life and those concerned with planning social change. Earlier accounts came mostly from colonial administrators, law officers and occasionally from the local intelligensia (Morrison, 1972b: 327). These reports were invariably derogatory. They blamed these peripheral figures for a socially and economically destructive proliferation of litigation, and depicted them as swarming at the courts where for ill-gotten personal gain, they encouraged and facilitated lawsuits among the peasantry. But these figures were never described in much detail and their work seems rarely to have been observed at first hand. A variety of European terms were used to characterize them: “sea advocates,” “bush lawyers,” “touts,” and the like. Both lay and semi-official roles seemed to be included.