The College of Advocates was founded in -747 in Boren by a group of worshippers of the god
Abadar.
40 years later, after expanding rapidly and admitting students of all faiths, it moved to
Jiah where it has been based ever since.
The College is both a teaching institution and a professional body with an international reputation whose members have to pass rigorous exams. The student courses are very expensive but the college awards many scholarships to ensure that its intake is not just from
the rich elite.
Likewise the fees for the expertise of its qualified members are high but so is the demand for their services
which by reputation are rigorously even-handed and professional. Again in order to avoid recourse to the law being solely available to the rich the qualified Advocates are encouraged to take a proportion of their cases on assessed affordable fees for the middle and lower classes. The members of the college may be hired in various roles which include private defendants but
also government prosecutors and judges and resolvers of international disputes.
Perhaps the most famous cases that the College had undertaken involved the legality of the
Church of Asmodeus in both
Westcrown and Boren. In Westcrown the Advocates argued (successfully) that the contracts the the worshippers
of Asmodeus signed were simply the same sort of commitment that worshippers of other gods were making, it was just that
Asmodeus was a particular lawful god. In Boren, feeling that this argument wouldn't wash the Advocates argued that the contracts
signed by Asmodeus worshippers were harmless because Asmodeus wasn't a real god and indeed probably not a real being at all.
Unfortunately this argument also didn't wash with the Boren courts.
The College expects its Advocates to have expertise in the laws of all Gherant Coast cities and the ecclesiaticical laws of all
the regions major religions. It also has specialists in the laws of all the civilised countries south of the Great Desert and north of the Laughing Jungle.