Lawyer

A lawyer, or legal practitioner, is a person certified to give legal advice who advises clients in legal matters. Some lawyers represent clients in courts of law and in other forms of dispute resolution.

Law is a theoretical and abstract discipline, and working as a lawyer represents the practical application of legal theory and knowledge to solve real problems or to advance the interests of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers for legal services.Arizona Lawyer Directory

The role of the lawyer varies significantly across legal jurisdictions, and therefore can be treated here in only the most general terms.Car Accident Lawyer Directory

Responsibilities of Lawyer

In most countries, particularly civil law countries, there has been a tradition of giving many legal tasks to a variety of civil law notaries, clerks, and scriveners. These countries do not have lawyers in the American sense, insofar as that term refers to a single type of general-purpose legal services provider; rather, their legal professions consist of a large number of law-trained persons, known as jurists, of which only some are advocates who are licensed to practice in the courts.Chicago Lawyer Directory

A lawyer is usually permitted to carry out all or nearly all the responsibilities listed below:

Oral argument in the courts:

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 a type of attorney known commonly as a trial lawyer in the United States.Family Lawyer Directory

However, the boundary between barristers and solicitors has gradually evolved over time. For example, in England, the barrister monopoly covers only appellate courts, and barristers must compete directly with solicitors in many trial courts.Georgia Lawyer Directory

Research and drafting of court papers:

Often, lawyers brief a court in writing on the issue in a case before the issue can be orally argued. They may have to perform extensive research into relevant facts and law.

In England, a solicitor gets the facts of the case from the client and briefs a barrister in writing. The barrister then researches, drafts, and files the necessary court pleadings, and orally argues the case.

Advocacy (written and oral) in administrative hearings:

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 a few countries, there is a special category of jurists with a monopoly over this form of advocacy; for example, France formerly had conseil juridiques. 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.FIND Asbestos Lawyer

Client intake and counseling (with regard to pending litigation):

In England, only solicitors were traditionally in direct contact with the client. The solicitor retained a barrister if one was necessary and acted as an intermediary between the barrister and the client. In most cases a barrister would be 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 practising, at a court at which they normally appeared and at their usual ratesHouston Lawyer Directory.

Legal advice (with regard to all legal matters):

Legal advice is the application of abstract principles of law to the concrete facts of the client's case in order to advise the client about what they should do next. In many countries, only a properly licensed lawyer may provide legal advice to clients for good consideration, even if no lawsuit is contemplated or is in progress. Therefore, even conveyancers and corporate in-house counsel must first get a license to practice, though they may actually spend very little of their careers in court. Failure to obey such a rule is the crime of unauthorized practice of law.Illinois Lawyer Directory

Protecting intellectual property:

In virtually all countries, patents, trademarks, 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.Massachusetts Lawyer Directory

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. In others, jurists or notaries may negotiate or draft contracts.Malpractice Lawyer Directory

Lawyers in some civil law countries traditionally deprecated "transactional law" or "business law" as beneath them. French law firms developed transactional departments only in the 1990s when they started to lose business to international firms based in the United States and the United Kingdom (where solicitors have always done transactional work.Losangeles Lawyer Directory

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 (or a solicitor where that distinction still exists). Such a monopoly is quite valuable from the lawyer's point of view; historically, conveyancing accounted for about half of English solicitors' income (though this has since changed), and a 1978 study showed that conveyancing "accounts for as much as 80 percent of solicitor-client contact in New South Wales." In most common law jurisdictions outside of the United States, this monopoly arose from an 1804 law 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.Injury Lawyer Directory

Carrying out the intent of the deceased:

In many countries, only lawyers have the legal authority to do drafting of wills, 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.Brain Injury Lawyer Directory

In the United States, the estates of the deceased must be administered by a court through probate. American lawyers have a profitable monopoly on dispensing advice about probate law (which has been heavily criticized).

Prosecution 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. In common law countries, prosecutors are usually lawyers holding regular licenses who simply happen to work for the government office that files criminal charges against suspects.Auto Accident Lawyer Directory