Editing Bar (law) (section)

==Courtroom division==
[[File:Bokrijk, Ancien Régime lawcourt.jpg|thumb|The wooden bar in front of the magistrate's [[bench (law)|bench]] in an 18th-century outdoor courtroom in [[Belgium]] ]]

The origin of the term ''bar'' is from the barring furniture dividing a medieval European courtroom, which defined the areas restricted to lawyers and court personnel from which the general public was excluded.<ref>{{Cite web |title=History – The Florida Bar |url=https://www.floridabar.org/about/faq/history/ |access-date=2023-05-23 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rivlin |first1=Geoffrey |title=Understanding the law |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, U.K |isbn=9780199608805 |page=147 |edition=6th}}</ref> Within most modern courts of the U.S., Europe and many other countries, the bar continues to be represented by a physical partition, such as a [[wikt:railing|railing]] or [[wikt:barrier|barrier]].<ref name="Walker">{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=David Maxwell |title=The Oxford companion to law |date=1980 |publisher=Clarendon press |location=Oxford |isbn=0-19-866110-X |page=112,123}}</ref> The area behind the bar is open to the public.<ref name="blacks">
{{cite book |last= |first= |url= |title=Black's Law Dictionary |publisher=West Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=0-314-15199-0 |editor-last=Garner |editor-first=Bryan |edition=8th |location=St. Paul, MN |pages=157–8 |doi= |id= |author-link=}}</ref> This restriction is enforced in nearly all courts.