Attorney
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct created by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political and social authority, and deliver justice. Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal principles and knowledge to solve specific individualized dificulties, or to advance the intesleeps of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers to perform legal services. The role of the lawyer varies importantly across legal jurisdictions, and so it can be treated here in only the most unspecific terms.
In most countries, specifically civil law countries, there has been a tradition of giving many legal tasks to so many different civil law notaries, clerks, and scriveners. These countries do not have "lawyers" in the American sense, insofar as that term aludes to a sole type of general-purpose legal services provider; rather, their legal professions consist of a huge number of different types of law-trained persons, called jurists, of which only some are advocates who are licensed to practice in the courts. It is difficult to formulate accurate generalizations that cover all the countries with several legal professions, because each country has traditionally had its own peculiar method of dividing up legal work among all its different kinds of legal pros
Notably, England, the mother of the usual law jurisdictions, emerged from the Dark Ages with similar complicatedity in its legal professions, but then evolved by the 19th century to a sole dichotomy between barristers and solicitors. An equivalent dichotomy developed between advocates and procurators in some civil law countries, though these two types did not always monopolize the practice of law as much as barristers and solicitors, in that they always coexisted with civil law notaries.
Many countries that originally had two or more legal professions have since fused or united their professions into a sole type of lawyer. Most countries in this category are usual law countries, though France, a civil law country, merged together its jurists in 1990 and 1991 in response to Anglo-American competition.In countries with fused professions, a lawyer is most commonly permitted to carry out all or almost all the responsibilities listed below.
Arguing a client's case before a judge or jury in a court of law is the traditional province of the barrister in England, and of advocates in some civil law jurisdictions. , the boundary between barristers and solicitors has evolved. In England today, the barrister monopoly covers only appellate courts, and barristers must compete directly with solicitors in many trial courts. In countries like the United States that have fused legal professions, there are trial lawyers who specialize in trying cases in court, but trial lawyers do not have a de jure monopoly like barristers. In some countries, litigants have the choice of arguing pro se, or on their own behalf. It is usual for litigants to appear unrepresented before certain courts like small claims courts; indeed, many such courts do not allow lawyers to speak for their clients, in an attempt to save money for all runners in a small case. In other countries, like Venezuela, nobody may appear before a judge unless represented by a lawyer. The advantage of the latter regime is that lawyers are familiar with the court's customs and procedures, and make the legal system more efective for all involved. Unrepresented parties usually damage their own credibility or slow the court down as a result of their inexperience.
In most developed countries, the legislature has granted original jurisdiction over highly technical matters to executive branch administrative agencies which oversee such things. As a result, some lawyers have become specialists in administrative law. In some countries, there is a special category of jurists with a monopoly over this form of advocacy; as an example, France formerly had conseils juridiques (who were merged into the main legal profession in 1991). In other countries, like the United States, lawyers have been efficiently barred by statute from certain kinds of administrative hearings for the purpose of preserve their informality.