On 5 January 1764, members of the New York City bar relaxed their rules on clerkship. Under the new agreement, law clerks were to possess at least two years’ education at a college or university, were required to pay a £200 clerkship fee, and were required to serve at least five years as clerks.1 Attorneys were forbidden to take a second clerk until three years of service of the first clerk had expired, thus ensuring that no attorney would have more than two clerks at a time. Benjamin Kissam (c. 1730–82), one of the attorneys subscribing to this agreement, had apparently made arrangements for taking John Jay as his clerk in the brief time since the new rules had been instituted by the bar. No copy of the agreement signed by Kissam and John Jay has been found, but Peter Jay’s letter makes it clear that it corresponded with the rules outlined by the bar on 5 January. In one respect, however, John Jay’s clerkship conflicted with the new bar agreement: Kissam had taken Lindley Murray2 as his clerk only a year before.3

On 1 June 1764, Jay entered Benjamin Kissam’s law office on Golden Hill. There were no formal law schools; instead, prospective lawyers clerked for established attorneys. This education could be hit or miss and consisted mainly in the laborious transcription of legal documents. Jay was fortunate in clerking for Benjamin Kissam, with whom he developed a close personal relationship. He also benefited from contact with the senior clerk, Murray, who remained a friend. Kissam’s practice was a busy one, and even with the variety of printed forms available in New York in the 1760s, there was much laborious transcription left for his clerks. John Jay’s early years of clerkship were occupied largely with copying pleadings and judgment rolls, while Murray, the senior clerk, maintained Kissam’s registers, billed clients, and performed duties involved in trial preparation.4 Reviewing his years in Benjamin Kissam’s office, Lindley Murray remarked that as a clerk John Jay was “remarkable for strong reasoning powers, comprehensive views, indefatigable application, and uncommon firmness of mind.”5 Jay began the accumulation of legal treatises and law reports and, as was customary, drew up his own “Commonplace Book,” entering therein a variety of legal forms, judicial precedents, and statutory references bearing directly on legal practice.6