The Esquire honorific is what has long puzzled me. Evidently, no very great number of lawyers prior to my own lifetime had thought that the honorific was needed to signal special status as a signatory on a document.
(I realize that some sort of signal is needed on documents, but my recollection from my own expert witness work in the 1980s is that the signature block typically had a printed/typed phrase such as "Attorney-at-Law." That is much more dignified, in my opinion, than Esquire [which is a feudal term that ordinarily refered to landed gentry, I believe].
bump for later
Well into the 1960’s many law schools were still awarding the LLB. There was a movement to substitute the JD. I know because I first received an LLB and then retroactively the JD in its place as the movement hit my own law school and as an editor there advocated for the JD while there. Also, coincidentally I worked at the time of my last year in law school for the then United States Civil Service Commission, Bureau of Recruiting and Examining as a program developer and the statistics available there showed that government lawyers with a JD were receiving more pay than those with an LLB even though the degrees were as a practical matter identical.
Agreed _doc, Blacks Law Dictionary defines Esquire as follows:
In English law, a title of dignity next above a gentleman, and below a knight. Also a title of office given to sheriffs, sergeants, and barristers at law, justices of the peace, and others. In the United States, title commonly appended after name of an attorney.