Lawyer

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Lawyer

A lawyer is a person who

public servant. — with each role having different functions and privileges.[1] Working as a lawyer generally involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific problems. Some lawyers also work primarily in advancing the interests of the law and legal profession.[2][3]

Terminology

Different legal jurisdictions have different requirements in the determination of who is recognized as a lawyer. As a result, the meaning of the term "lawyer" may vary from place to place.

Some jurisdictions have two types of lawyers, barrister and solicitors, while others fuse the two. A barrister (also known as an advocate or counselor in some jurisdictions) is a lawyer who typically specializes in arguing before courts, particularly in higher courts. A solicitor (or attorney) is a lawyer who is trained to prepare cases and give advice on legal subjects. Depending on jurisdiction, solicitors can also represent people in lower courts but do not ordinarily have rights of audience in higher courts. Both solicitors and barristers are trained in law. However, in jurisdictions where there is a split profession, only barristers are admitted as members of a bar association.

Additionally, England and Wales have many other classifications of lawyers, which include registered foreign lawyers, patent attorneys, trademark attorneys, licensed conveyancers, public notaries, commissioners for oaths, immigration advisers and chartered legal executives. Under the English Legal Services Act 2007, "lawyer" is not a protected title. In other jurisdictions, like the United States, there are strict restrictions on who may call themselves a lawyer, with paralegals and patent agents generally disallowed.[4][5][6]

The distinction between barristers and solicitors originated in the English legal system, but many countries which have adopted English law have eliminated the distinction. Countries such as New Zealand, Canada (except for Quebec, which practices civil law), India, Pakistan, and the US have adopted a fused profession, where all lawyers have the privileges of both barristers and solicitors.[7]

Some fused-profession jurisdictions use one term to describe lawyers generally. For example, US lawyers are typically referred to as "attorneys",[6] while Indian and Pakistani lawyers are known as "advocates". Other fused jurisdictions use terms such as "barrister and solicitor" or "attorney and counselor" to describe lawyers in general. In countries like the US, however, the term "trial lawyer" typically describes the work of a lawyer who specialises primarily in arguing cases.

In some jurisdictions, the terminology of "barrister" and "solicitor" may still be applied to lawyers who deal in the specific kinds of work barristers and solicitors generally do.

In most countries, particularly civil law countries, a tradition has existed of giving many legal tasks to a variety of civil law notaries, clerks, and scriveners.[8][9] These countries do not have "lawyers" in terms of a single general-purpose legal services provider.[10] Rather, their legal professions consist of a large number of different kinds of legally-trained persons, known as jurists, some of whom are advocates who are licensed to practice in the courts.[11][12][13] Because each country has traditionally had its own method of dividing up legal work among its legal professionals, it has been difficult to formulate accurate generalizations that cover all the countries with multiple legal professions.[14]

Responsibilities

England, the mother of the common law jurisdictions, emerged from the Middle Ages with a complexity in its legal professions similar to that of civil law jurisdictions, but then evolved by the 19th century to a single division between barristers and solicitors. An equivalent division developed between advocates and procurators in some civil law countries; these two types did not always monopolize the practice of law, in that they coexisted with civil law notaries.[15][16][17]

Several countries that originally had two or more legal professions have since fused or united their professions into a single type of lawyer.[18][19][20][21] Most countries in this category are common law countries, though France, a civil law country, merged its jurists in 1990 and 1991 in response to Anglo-American competition.[22] In countries with fused professions, a lawyer is usually permitted to carry out all or nearly all the responsibilities listed below.

Oral argument in the courts

Oral arguments being made before the New York Court of Appeals

Arguing a client's case before a

pro se, or on their own behalf. It is common for litigants to appear unrepresented before certain courts like small claims courts; many such courts do not allow lawyers to speak for their clients, in an effort to save money for participants in a small case.[26] In other countries, like Venezuela, no one may appear before a judge unless represented by a lawyer.[27] The advantage of the latter regime is that lawyers are familiar with the court's customs and procedures, and make the legal system more efficient for all involved. Unrepresented parties often damage their own credibility or slow the court down as a result of their inexperience.[28][29]

Research and drafting of court papers

Often, lawyers brief a court in writing on the issues in a case before the issues can be orally argued. They may have to perform extensive research into relevant facts. Also, they draft legal papers and prepare for an oral argument.

In split common law jurisdictions, the usual division of labor is that a solicitor will obtain the facts of the case from the client and then brief a barrister, usually in writing.[30] The barrister then researches and drafts the necessary court pleadings, which will be filed and served by the solicitor, and orally argues the case.[31]

In Spanish civil law, the procurator merely signs and presents the papers to the court, but it is the advocate who drafts the papers and argues the case.[32] In other civil law jurisdictions, like Japan, a scrivener or clerk may fill out court forms and draft simple papers for laypersons who cannot afford or do not need attorneys, and advise them on how to manage and argue their own cases.[33]

Advocacy in administrative hearings

In most developed countries, the legislature has granted

executive branch administrative agencies which oversee such things. As a result, some lawyers have become specialists in administrative law. In a few countries, there is a special category of jurists with a monopoly over this form of advocacy; for example, France formerly had conseils juridiques (who were merged into the main legal profession in 1991).[34] In other countries, like the United States, lawyers have been effectively barred by statute from certain types of administrative hearings in order to preserve their informality.[35]

Client intake and counseling

An important aspect of a lawyer's job is developing and managing relationships with clients or the employees of the government or corporation. In some fused common law jurisdictions, the client-lawyer relationship begins with an intake interview where the lawyer gets to know the client personally, following which the lawyer discovers the facts of the client's case, clarifies what the client wants to accomplish, and shapes the client's expectations as to what actually can be accomplished. The second to last step begins to develop various claims or defenses for the client. Lastly, the lawyer explains her or his fees to the client.[36][37]

In England, only solicitors were traditionally in direct contact with the client,[38][needs update] but barristers nowadays may apply for rights to liaise with clients directly. The solicitor retained a barrister if one was necessary and acted as an intermediary between the barrister and the client.[39] In most cases barristers were obliged, under what is known as the "cab rank rule", to accept instructions for a case in an area in which they held themselves out as practicing, at a court at which they normally appeared and at their usual rates.[40][41]

Legal advice

Legal advice is the application of abstract principles of law to the concrete facts of the client's case to advise the client about what they should do next. In some jurisdictions, only a properly licensed lawyer may provide legal advice to clients for good

unauthorized practice of law.[45]

In other countries, jurists who hold law degrees are allowed to provide legal advice to individuals or to corporations, and it is irrelevant if they lack a license and cannot appear in court.[46][47] Some countries go further; in England and Wales, there is no general prohibition on the giving of legal advice.[48] Singapore does not have any admission requirements for in-house counsel.[49] Sometimes civil law notaries are allowed to give legal advice, as in Belgium.[50]

In many countries, non-jurist accountants may provide what is technically legal advice in tax and accounting matters.[51]

Protecting intellectual property

In virtually all countries,

industrial designs and other forms of intellectual property must be formally registered with a government agency in order to receive maximum protection under the law. The division of such work among lawyers, licensed non-lawyer jurists/agents, and ordinary clerks or scriveners varies greatly from one country to the next.[33][52]

The trend in industrialized countries since the 1970s has been to greatly restrict the role of clerks and scriveners in patent and trademark work, and to require these functions to be performed only by lawyers or other licensed agents. This ensures that all work product in such cases receives the full protection of attorney-client privilege.

In the United States, for example, the Patent and Trademark Office may not speak with anyone but the applicant's attorney about pending applications, and all documents filed in connection with a pending application are automatically accorded attorney-client privilege. The European Patent Office has a similar policy. In contrast, many countries in the world do not recognize attorney-client privilege for work product related to intellectual property, or have only very limited recognition of the privilege. These countries include China, Japan, Korea, much of Southeast Asia, and most of Latin America. As a result, great care must be taken in these countries to protect intellectual property, as any work product related to a pending application may be disclosed to the public.

Many companies choose to file their applications in the United States or Europe first, and then file for protection in other countries where attorney-client privilege is not recognized. This allows them to keep their work product confidential while they are still in the process of perfecting their invention or design.[53]

Negotiating and drafting contracts

In some countries, the negotiating and drafting of contracts is considered to be similar to the provision of legal advice, so that it is subject to the licensing requirement explained above.[54] In others, jurists or notaries may negotiate or draft contracts.[55]

Conveyancing

Conveyancing is the drafting of the documents necessary for the transfer of real property, such as deeds and mortgages. In some jurisdictions, all real estate transactions must be carried out by a lawyer.[56] Historically, conveyancing accounted for about half of English solicitors' income, though this has since changed,[57] and a 1978 study showed that conveyancing "accounts for as much as 80 percent of solicitor-client contact in New South Wales."[58] In most common law jurisdictions outside of the United States, this monopoly arose from an 1804 law[59] that was introduced by William Pitt the Younger as a quid pro quo for the raising of fees on the certification of legal professionals such as barristers, solicitors, attorneys, and notaries.[60]

In others, the use of a lawyer is optional and banks, title companies, or

realtors may be used instead.[61] In some civil law jurisdictions, real estate transactions are handled by civil law notaries.[62] In England and Wales, a special class of legal professionals–the licensed conveyancer–is also allowed to carry out conveyancing services for reward.[63]

Carrying out the intent of the deceased

In many countries, only lawyers have the legal authority to draft

trusts, and any other documents that ensure the efficient disposition of a person's property after death. In some civil law countries, this responsibility is handled by civil law notaries.[55]

Prosecution and defense of criminal suspects

In many civil law countries, prosecutors are trained and employed as part of the judiciary. They are law-trained jurists, but may not necessarily be lawyers in the sense that the word is used in the common law world.[64] In common law countries, prosecutors are usually lawyers holding regular licenses who work for the government office that files criminal charges against suspects. Criminal defense lawyers specialize in the defense of those charged with any crimes.[65]

Education

Law Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia)

The educational prerequisites for becoming a lawyer vary greatly from country to country. In some countries, law is taught by a

faculty of law, which is a department of a university's general undergraduate college.[66] Law students in those countries pursue a Master or Bachelor of Laws degree. In some countries it is common or even required for students to earn another bachelor's degree at the same time. It is often followed by a series of advanced examinations, apprenticeships, and additional coursework at special government institutes.[67]

In other countries, particularly the UK and US, law is primarily taught at law schools.[68] In America, the American Bar Association decides which law schools to approve for the purposes of admission to the bar.[69] In jurisdictions following the English system, individuals with a law degree may have to undergo further training before qualifying as a lawyer, such as the Bar Professional Training Course.[70] In the United States[71] and countries following the American model, such as Canada with the exception Quebec,[72] law schools are graduate schools where a bachelor's degree is a prerequisite for admission. Most law schools are part of universities but a few are independent institutions. Law schools in the United States award graduating students a J.D. (Juris Doctor), as opposed to the Bachelor of Laws, as the practitioner's law degree.[73] Many schools also offer post-doctoral law degrees such as the LL.M (Master of Laws), or the S.J.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science) for students interested in advancing their legal knowledge.[74]

The methods and quality of legal education vary widely. Some countries require extensive clinical training in the form of apprenticeships or special clinical courses.[75] Others, like Venezuela, do not.[76] A few countries prefer to teach through assigned readings of judicial opinions (the casebook method) followed by intense in-class cross-examination by the professor (the Socratic method).[77][78] Many others focus on theoretical aspects of law, leaving the professional and practical training of lawyers to apprenticeship and employment contexts.[79][80][81] Depending upon the country, a typical class size could range from five students in a seminar to five hundred in a giant lecture room.[82]

Some countries, particularly industrialized ones, have a traditional preference for full-time law programs,[83] while in developing countries, students often work full- or part-time to pay the tuition and fees of their part-time law programs.[84][85] Law schools in developing countries share several common problems, such as an over reliance on practicing judges and lawyers who treat teaching as a part-time hobby (and a concomitant scarcity of full-time law professors);[86][87] incompetent faculty with questionable credentials;[88] and textbooks that lag behind the current state of the law by two or three decades.[86][89]

Earning the right to practice law

Clara Shortridge Foltz, admitted to the California Bar through an examination before attending law school

Some jurisdictions grant a "diploma privilege" to certain institutions, so that merely earning a degree or credential from those institutions is the primary qualification for practicing law.[90] Mexico allows anyone with a law degree to practice law.[91] However, in a large number of countries, a law student must pass a bar examination (or a series of such examinations) before receiving a license to practice.[90][92][93] In a handful of U.S. states, one may become an attorney (a so-called country lawyer) by simply "reading law" and passing the bar examination, without having to attend law school first, although very few people actually become lawyers that way.[94]

Some countries require a formal apprenticeship with an experienced practitioner, while others do not.[95] A few jurisdictions still allow an apprenticeship in place of any kind of formal legal education, though the number of persons who actually become lawyers that way is increasingly rare.[96]

Career structure

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a famous example of a lawyer who became a politician.

The career structure of lawyers varies widely from one country to the next.

Common and civil law

In most

entrepreneur, or journalist.[98] In developing countries like India, a large majority of law students never actually practice, but simply use their law degree as a foundation for careers in other fields.[99]

In most civil law countries, lawyers generally structure their legal education around their chosen specialty; the boundaries between different types of lawyers are carefully defined and hard to cross.[100] After one earns a law degree, career mobility may be severely constrained.[101] For example, unlike their Anglo-American counterparts,[102] it is difficult for German judges to leave the bench and become advocates in private practice.[103] Another interesting example is France, where for much of the 20th century, all judiciary officials were graduates of an elite professional school for judges.[104]

In a few civil law countries, such as Sweden,[105] the legal profession is not rigorously bifurcated and everyone within it can easily change roles and arenas.

Specialization

In many countries, lawyers are general practitioners who represent clients in a broad field of legal matters.[106] In others, there has been a tendency since the start of the 20th century for lawyers to specialize early in their careers.[107][108] In countries where specialization is prevalent, many lawyers specialize in representing one side in one particular area of the law; thus, it is common in the United States to hear of plaintiffs' personal injury attorneys.[109][110]

Organizations

Lawyers in private practice generally work in specialized businesses known as law firms,[111] with the exception of English barristers. The vast majority of law firms worldwide are small businesses that range in size from 1 to 10 lawyers.[112] The United States,[113] United Kingdom and Australia are exceptions, home to several firms with more than 1,000 lawyers after a wave of mergers in the late 1990s.

Notably, barristers in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some states in Australia do not work in law firms. Those who offer their services to members of the general public—as opposed to those working in-house — are generally self-employed.[114] Most work in groupings known as "sets" or "chambers", where some administrative and marketing costs are shared. An important effect of this different organizational structure is that there is no conflict of interest where barristers in the same chambers work for opposing sides in a case, and in some specialized chambers this is commonplace.

Some large businesses employ their own legal staff in a legal department.[115] Other organizations buy in legal services from outside companies.[116]

Professional associations and regulation

Stamp issued to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the American Bar Association

Mandatory licensing and membership in professional organizations

In some jurisdictions, either the judiciary[117] or the Ministry of Justice[118] directly supervises the admission, licensing, and regulation of lawyers.

Other jurisdictions, by statute, tradition, or court order, have granted such powers to a professional association which all lawyers must belong to.

unauthorized practice of law.[125]

In common law countries with divided legal professions, barristers traditionally belong to the bar council (or an Inn of Court) and solicitors belong to the law society. In the English-speaking world, the largest mandatory professional association of lawyers is the State Bar of California, with 230,000 members.

Some countries admit and regulate lawyers at the national level, so that a lawyer, once licensed, can argue cases in any court in the land. This is common in small countries like New Zealand, Japan, and Belgium.[126] Others, especially those with federal governments, tend to regulate lawyers at the state or provincial level; this is the case in the United States,[127] Canada,[128] Australia,[129] and Switzerland,[130] to name a few. Brazil is the most well-known federal government that regulates lawyers at the national level.[131]

Some countries, like Italy, regulate lawyers at the regional level,

Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundesgerichtshof or BGH.[134]

Generally, geographic limitations can be troublesome for a lawyer who discovers that his client's cause requires him to litigate in a court beyond the normal geographic scope of his license. Although most courts have special pro hac vice rules for such occasions, the lawyer will still have to deal with a different set of professional responsibility rules, as well as the possibility of other differences in substantive and procedural law.

Some countries grant licenses to non-resident lawyers, who may then appear regularly on behalf of foreign clients. Others require all lawyers to live in the jurisdiction or to even hold national citizenship as a prerequisite for receiving a license to practice. But the trend in industrialized countries since the 1970s has been to abolish citizenship and residency restrictions. For example, the

U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 and 1985, respectively.[136] The European Court of Justice made similar decisions in 1974 and 1977 striking down citizenship restrictions in Belgium and France.[137]

Regulation of lawyers

A key difference among countries is whether lawyers should be regulated solely by an independent judiciary and its subordinate institutions (a self-regulating legal profession),

executive branch
.

In most civil law countries, the government has traditionally exercised tight control over the legal profession in order to ensure a steady supply of loyal judges and bureaucrats. That is, lawyers were expected first and foremost to serve the state, and the availability of counsel for private litigants was an afterthought.[139] Even in civil law countries like Norway which have partially self-regulating professions, the Ministry of Justice is the sole issuer of licenses, and makes its own independent re-evaluation of a lawyer's fitness to practice after a lawyer has been expelled from the Advocates' Association.[118] Brazil is an unusual exception in that its national Order of Advocates has become a fully self-regulating institution with direct control over licensing and has successfully resisted government attempts to place it under the control of the Ministry of Labor.[140][141]

Of all the civil law countries, communist countries historically went the farthest towards total state control, with all communist lawyers forced to practice in collectives by the mid-1950s.[142][143] China is a prime example: technically, the People's Republic of China did not have lawyers, and instead had only poorly trained, state-employed "legal workers" prior to the enactment of a comprehensive reform package in 1996 by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.[144]

In contrast, common law lawyers have traditionally regulated themselves through institutions where the influence of non-lawyers, if any, was weak and indirect, despite nominal state control.[145] Such institutions have been traditionally dominated by private practitioners who opposed strong state control of the profession on the grounds that it would endanger the ability of lawyers to zealously and competently advocate their clients' causes in the adversarial system of justice.[146] However, the concept of the self-regulating profession has been criticized as a sham which serves to legitimize the professional monopoly while protecting the profession from public scrutiny.[147] In some jurisdictions, mechanisms have been astonishingly ineffective, and penalties have been light or nonexistent.[148][149][150]

Voluntary associations

Lawyers are always free to form voluntary associations of their own, apart from any licensing or mandatory membership that may be required by the laws of their jurisdiction. Like their mandatory counterparts, such organizations may exist at all geographic levels.[91][151] In American English, such associations are known as voluntary bar associations.[152] The largest voluntary professional association of lawyers in the English-speaking world is the American Bar Association. In some countries, like France and Italy, lawyers have also formed trade unions.[153]

Cultural perception

A British political cartoon showing a barrister and a solicitor throwing black paint at a woman sitting at the feet of a statue representing Justice

Hostility towards the legal profession is a widespread phenomenon. For example, William Shakespeare famously wrote, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" in Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2. The legal profession was abolished in Prussia in 1780 and in France in 1789, though both countries eventually realized that their judicial systems could not function efficiently without lawyers.[154] Complaints about too many lawyers were common in both England and the United States in the 1840s,[155][156] Germany in the 1910s,[157] and in Australia,[158] Canada,[159] the United States,[160][161][162] and Scotland[163] in the 1980s.

Public distrust of lawyers reached record heights in the United States after the Watergate scandal.[162][164] In the aftermath of Watergate, legal self-help books became popular among those who wished to solve their legal problems without having to deal with lawyers.[165] Lawyer jokes also soared in popularity in English-speaking North America as a result of Watergate.[166]

In Adventures in Law and Justice, legal researcher Bryan Horrigan dedicated a chapter to "Myths, Fictions, and Realities" about law and illustrated the perennial criticism of lawyers as "amoral [...] guns for hire"[167] with a quote from Ambrose Bierce's satirical The Devil's Dictionary that summarized the noun as: "LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law."[168]

More generally, in Legal Ethics: A Comparative Study, law professor

Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr. with Angelo Dondi briefly examined the "regulations attempting to suppress lawyer misconduct" and noted that their similarity around the world was paralleled by a "remarkable consistency" in certain "persistent grievances" about lawyers that transcends both time and locale, from the Bible to medieval England to dynastic China.[169]
The authors then generalized these common complaints about lawyers as being classified into five "general categories" as follows:

Some studies have shown that suicide rates among lawyers in certain jurisdictions may be as much as six times higher than the average population, and commentators suggest that the low opinion the public has of lawyers, combined with their own high ideals of justice, which in practice they may see denied, increase the depression rates of those in this profession.[171][172] Additionally, lawyers are twice as likely to suffer from addiction to alcohol and other drugs.[173]

Compensation

Peasants paying for legal services with produce in The Village Lawyer, c. 1621, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger

In the United States, lawyers typically earn between $45,000 and $160,000 per year, although earnings vary by age, experience, and practice setting.[174][175][176][177] Solo practitioners typically earn less than lawyers in corporate law firms but more than those working for state or local government.

Lawyers are paid for their work in a variety of ways. In private practice, they may work for an hourly fee according to a billable hour structure,

contingency fee,[179] or a lump sum payment. Normally, most lawyers negotiate a written fee agreement up front and may require a non-refundable retainer in advance. Recent studies suggest that when lawyers charge a fixed fee rather than billing by the hour, they work less hard on behalf of clients, and clients get worse outcomes.[180][181] In many countries there are fee-shifting arrangements by which the loser must pay the winner's fees and costs; the United States is the major exception,[182]
although in turn, its legislators have carved out many exceptions to the so-called "American Rule" of no fee shifting.

Lawyers working directly on the payroll of governments, nonprofits, and corporations usually earn a regular annual salary.

pro bono (short for pro bono publico, "for the common good").[185] Traditionally such work was performed on behalf of the poor, but in some countries it has now expanded to many other causes such as environmental law
.

In some countries, there are legal aid lawyers who specialize in providing legal services to the indigent.[186][187] France and Spain even have formal fee structures by which lawyers are compensated by the government for legal aid cases on a per-case basis.[188] A similar system, though not as extensive or generous, operates in Australia, Canada, and South Africa.[189]

In other countries, legal aid specialists are practically nonexistent. This may be because non-lawyers are allowed to provide such services; in both

legal expense insurance.[191]

History

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