The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. There are four Inns of Court: Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple, and Middle Temple.

All barristers must belong to one of them. They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional accommodation. Each also has a church or chapel attached to it and is a self-contained precinct where barristers traditionally train and practise. However, growth in the legal profession, together with a desire to practise from more modern accommodations and buildings with lower rents, caused many barristers' chambers to move outside the precincts of the Inns of Court in the late 20th century.

During the 12th and early 13th centuries, law was taught in the City of London, primarily by the clergy. In 1219 Pope Honorius III promulgated Super Specula, prohibiting the clergy from studying secular law as opposed to canon law. As a result, English common law began to be practised and taught by laymen instead of clerics. To protect their schools from competition, first Henry II (r. 1154–1189) and later Henry III (r. 1216–1272) issued proclamations prohibiting the teaching of the civil law within the City of London. The common-law lawyers worked in guilds of law, modelled on trade guilds, which in time became the Inns of Court.

In the earliest centuries of their existence, beginning with the 14th century, the Inns were any of a sizeable number of buildings or precincts where lawyers traditionally lodged, trained and carried on their profession. Over the centuries, the four Inns of Court became where barristers were trained, while the more numerous Inns of Chancery – which were initially affiliated to the Inns of Court – became associated with the training of solicitors in the Elizabethan era.

The four Inns of Court are:

Lawyers have lived and worked in the Temple since 1320. In 1337 the premises were divided into the Inner Temple, where the lawyers resided, and Middle Temple, which was also occupied by lawyers by 1346. Lincoln's Inn, the largest, is able to trace its official records to 1422. The records of Gray's Inn begin in 1569, but teaching is thought to have begun there in the late-fourteenth century. In 1620 a meeting of senior judges decided that all four Inns would be equal in order of precedence.

In the 16th century and earlier, students or apprentices learned their craft primarily by attending court sessions and by sharing both accommodation and education during the legal terms. Prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, this training lasted at least seven years; subsequently, the Inns focused their residency requirements on dining together in the company of experienced barristers, to enable learning through contact and networking with experts. In the mid-18th century the common law was first recognised as a subject for study in the universities, and by 1872 bar examinations became compulsory for entry into the profession of law.

The Inns played an important role in the history of the English Renaissance theatre. Notable literary figures and playwrights who resided in the Inns of Court included John Donne (1572-1631), Francis Beaumont (1584-1616), John Marston (1576-1634), Thomas Lodge (c. 1558-1625), Thomas Campion (1567-1620), Abraham Fraunce (c. 1559-c. 1593), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), and George Gascoigne (c. 1535-1577). Plays written and performed in the Inns of Court include Gorboduc, Gismund of Salerne (1561), and The Misfortunes of Arthur (1588). An example of a famous masque put on by the Inns was James Shirley's The Triumph of Peace (1634). Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (c. 1594) and Twelfth Night (c. 1602) were also performed at the Inns, although written for commercial theatre.