As discussed in Chapter 5, the fact that lawyers in private practice comprised only one-quarter to one-third of all law graduates means that a study of the social and geographic origins of all law students is an inadequate method of compiling biographical data for those students who later entered private practice. It is possible, however, first to identify private practitioners and then to use data regarding law students in order to secure a reliable source for biographical information about lawyers. This Methodological Appendix is intended to reveal clearly the methods by which the biographies of lawyers on which the analysis in Chapter 5 is based were constructed.

Annual registries of all lawyers in the province of Hannover (as well as all other provinces in Prussia), listed by the court before which they practiced, appear in the Prussian State Handbooks. In addition the yearly reports of the lawyers' chamber in Celle usually contained lists of new admittees, deaths, retirements, changes in residence, and other reasons for lawyers leaving the bar. The registry of members of the lawyers' chamber in Celle, required to be maintained as a roll of practitioners, apparently no longer exists. It was not available at the Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Hannover, the Geheimes Staatsarchiv in Dahlem, the Oberlandesgericht in Celle, or the Anwaltskammer in Celle.