Where does that come from, the “at law” part.
We don’t say “doctor at medicine”, or “architect at design”. We don’t even say “janitor at clean”, for that matter.
Are there attorneys who are not “at law”?
Is this abother one of those wierd British things? 
Peace,
mangeorge
An attorney at law is distinguished from an attorney in fact, who holds a power of attorney but is not necessarily licensed to practice law. An attorney in fact is usually a relative or friend to whom the principal delegates certain powers to be exercised on the principal’s behalf and according to the principal’s instructions. For example, I bought a house a few months ago but couldn’t attend the closing, so my real-estate agent attended and signed the closing papers as my attorney in fact.
Thanks, brianmelendez, that’s exactly what I wanted to know.
There’s an interesting bit of semantics going on here.
Technically, minty green, Jodi, Dewey Cheatem Undhow, Sua Sponte, and the other Dopers of the bar are not attorneys per se but lawyers – men (and women) who practice law as physicians practice medicine.
A close parallel would be the person who sells houses and other buildings for a living. Customarily this person is a “real estate agent” (“realtor” has a specialized meaning; it’s a real estate agent who belongs to a national organization of Realtors, with a particular ethical code, IIRC.)
But “attorney” and “agent” both describe relationships, not occupations – my attorney is the person I’ve given the responsibility of representing me in a legal transaction (see the “attorney at law/attorney in fact” distinction that brianmelendez ably drew. My agent is a person who represents me in a given sales/purchase situation, similarly – I’ve granted him or her the power of agency.
However, lawyers usually describe themselves as “attorneys at law” and real property vendors-for-others as “real estate agents” for the quite good reason that they make a living out of engaging in those relationships professionally for those members of the public that engage them as clients. I.e., Dewey acts as attorney for clients in his specialty, mergers and acquisitions, and, unless retained exclusively by a client, holds himself open to the general public to serve as the attorney for any one of them who wishes to engage in a merger or acquire a firm (or vend a firm to someone wishing to acquire it on terms profitable to the seller). He makes a living out of being people’s attorneys, so he repreesents himself as an attorney.
You will also see lawyers referring to themselves and each other as “counselors at law,” marking the other major professional undertaking – the giving of good legal advice to persons willing to pay for it, in the expectation that paying a competent attorney and taking his advice will be much cheaper than running afoul of the law and being sued.
But technically, a person fresh out of law school and having just passed the bar, without a client yet, is not an attorney but only a lawyer. And the 78-year-old man who practiced law for 50-odd years and is now spending his days sailing in the Bahamas is not a retired attorney but a retired lawyer.
50 or so years ago, the use of “attorney” over “lawyer” was an “in” thing because “attorney” lended a cachet that “lawyer” did not. But it masks a useful distinction: John Smith, Esq., may be the attorney for a number of people, but what he is in relation to the general public is a lawyer. It’s a good term with strong ethical standards, and should not be seen as a pejorative.
I have heard physicians describe themselves as “doctors of medicine” but I have no idea why they would feel the need to draw the distinction. My perception is that generally people who identify themselves as “Doctor So-and-so” are assumed to be medical doctors as opposed to, say, holding a doctorate in engineering or literature.
Thank you, Polycarp. I was going to say something along these lines, but you’ve covered the subject well.
“I am a lawyer.” “I am Jones’s attorney.”
That’s the difference.
Also, I believe there may be one other basis for distinction: I think it may be the case that there used to be both “attorneys at law” and “attorneys at equity.”
A few hundred years ago in England, there were courts of law (roughly what we think of as courts today) and courts of equity (roughly, courts where the niceties of legal proceedings were not observed and the judge was pretty much empowered to just do what was right between the parties). The courts of equity were important because the courts of law were really strict; if you filed the wrong writ (e.g., a writ of “trespass” instead of a writ of “trespass on the case,” neither of which necessarily have anything to do with entering upon the land of another), then you got thrown out of court, and people still to this day argue about which was the right writ in certain circumstances.
Today in the US, courts of law and courts of equity have merged, so you can seek both a legal remedy (e.g., expectation damages in a breach of contract case) and an equitable remedy (e.g., a recovery in quantum meruit for the value of services rendered on an unjust enrichment theory) in the same court. So, today all attorneys at law today are also attorneys at equity.
Also, I believe there may be one other basis for distinction: I think it may be the case that there used to be both “attorneys at law” and “attorneys at equity.”
A few hundred years ago in England, there were courts of law (roughly what we think of as courts today) and courts of equity (roughly, courts where the niceties of legal proceedings were not observed and the judge was pretty much empowered to just do what was right between the parties). The courts of equity were important because the courts of law were really strict; if you filed the wrong writ (e.g., a writ of “trespass” instead of a writ of “trespass on the case,” neither of which necessarily have anything to do with entering upon the land of another), then you got thrown out of court, and people still to this day argue about which was the right writ in certain circumstances.
Today in the US, courts of law and courts of equity have merged, so you can seek both a legal remedy (e.g., expectation damages in a breach of contract case) and an equitable remedy (e.g., a recovery in quantum meruit for the value of services rendered on an unjust enrichment theory) in the same court. So, today all attorneys at law are also attorneys at equity.
I’m not sure whether TaxGuy is quite right, but it is true that, traditionally, the courts of law, equity, and admiralty all each had two ranks of lawyers (similar to the system of solicitors and barristers in England today) and they each had their own specific nomeclatures:
Court of Law – attorney and barrister
Chancery Court (Equity Court) – solicitor and attorney
Admiralty and other courts – proctor and attorney
As you can see, there were attorneys in courts of law (which were of the lower rank) and in the chancery courts (which were of the higher rank). I don’t know, however, whether they were distinguished as “attorneys at law” and “attorneys at equity.”
Polycarp makes a good point here. Theodore Bernstein wrote that “a lawyer is an attorney only when he has a client.” This distinction is enshrined in the basic rules that many lawyers deal with daily: I remember the distinction because the rules of procedure (civil, criminal, and appellate) refer to me as an attorney; but the rules of professional conduct refer to me as a lawyer, and regulate with particular rules the other hats that I sometimes wear as a lawyer, such as counselor and advocate. I am always a lawyer; as a lawyer, I am sometimes also an attorney (when I am representing a client), sometimes a counselor (as when I am advising but not necessarily representing a client), and sometimes both.
This distinction is also observed in the names of bar organizations. When I am serving the bar association as a volunteer, I am acting as a lawyer, but not as an attorney. Thus many bar organizations use the word lawyer in their names — the ABA Young Lawyers Division, the American Trial Lawyers Association, the National Association of Women Lawyers — but very few use the word attorney. Of the 28 affiliated organizations represented in the ABA House of Delegates, two use counsel in their names (the Association of Life Insurance Counsel and the National Organization of Bar Counsel), three use lawyer (the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the National Association of Women Lawyers), and three use attorney — but of the three that use attorney, two (the National Association of Attorneys General and the National District Attorneys Association) do so because it is part of their members’ titles, and the third (the National Association of College & University Attorneys) does so because its members are each employed as inside counsel by a single client so that the distinction between lawyer and attorney abates. Of the hundreds of generalized state and local bar associations, my quick and unscientific survey found The Lawyers’ Club of San Francisco, the Lawyers’ Club of Los Angeles County, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and the New York County Lawyers Association, but not a single generalized state or bar association that uses attorney in its name.
The distinction between law and equity is still significant throughout the common-law jurisdictions, even though most of them have merged the courts of law and the courts of equity, as TaxGuy notes. The historical distinction between law and equity, and its modern-day consequences, were covered in the thread, What is a Court of Chancery?.
But there was never such a thing as an “attorney at equity.” The term attorney at law was originally coined as a way of distinguishing a lesser barrister from a serjeant at law:
Black’s Law Dictionary 1372 (7th ed. 1999).
Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 796 (2d ed. 1995), s.v. sergeant.
I believe (but am not certain) that the term attorney-in-fact is more recent, coined in order to distinguish a lawyer acting as an attorney from a nonlawyer acting as an attorney.
There is also the, now only historically relevant, distinction between an Attorney at Law and a Counsellor at Law.
In the English system, there was and remains a distinction between a Barrister, who represents clients in actual litigation before courts, and Solicitor, who provides general representation in non-court matters. As I understand it, in under early-U.S. practice (or perhaps early-N.Y. practice), there was a similar distinction between Counsellor, who represented clients in court, and Attorneys, who didn’t.
Currently, New York lawyers are admitted as both “Attorney and Counsellor” on their bar certificates.
One possible vestige of this is that lawyers will often call each other “Counsellor” in court, but rarely elsewhere.
So, my attorney is a lawyer if I’m being tried for murder. But for him/her to, say, accept my $15K from the cops’ evidence locker, I’ll have to grant power of attorney, right?
Man, I can see why lawyers screw up so often. And where they get those egos.
Billdo, I believe the distinction between attorneys and cousellors might still be observed in South Caroilna courts.
They say “doctor of medicine” because that’s the translated name of the degree they earn, MD or Medicinae Doctor (not sure of the correct Latin endings). Just as a lawyer earns a JD.
If someone says “I’m/he’s/she’s a doctor”, wouldn’t most (even intellectuals) assume a medico? I do.
A PHD isn’t a doctor.
There’s an interesting difference in usage between the U.S. and Canada on this point. We don’t use the term “attorney at law” - at least, I don’t remember seeing it. Technically, I’m a barrister & solicitor, since my jurisdiction is based on the English system but has merged the two functions, just like the merger of law and equity. But the common term we use is “lawyer”. In court, the judge will sometimes address us as “counsel”, never “counsellor.” If a young-just-passed the bar refers to another lawyer as an “attorney” it means he/she has been watching American t.v.
I was under the impression that a lawyer was anyone who had studied and was learned about law. I specifically remember the example that a legislator was a lawyer (since they necessarily study the law as part of the profession) even if they don’t have a law degree and never practiced law. If I’m right, is there a term specifically for someone who practices law professionally in the US? (Or would drafting and voting on legislation be considered “practicing” law? In which case, is there a term specifically for someone who, as a profession, represents clients as their attorney, councils them on legal matters, and advocates on their behalf in courts of law?)
No. A lawyer is, in every American jurisdiction, a graduate of an accredited law school who has passed at least one bar examination and who holds a professional license that admits him or her to practice in the jurisdiction’s courts. The practice of law – that is, holding oneself out as a lawyer – without such a license is a crime in every American jurisdiction that I know of.
Untrue. For one thing, “legislator” is not a profession, it is a titled role (although not necessarily an “office”) established under a state or the federal constitution. While there may be some career legislators out there, “legislator” is not a craft or trade in the traditional sense. Service as a legislator is only a part-time occupation in many states, where the legislators usually hold another job when the legislature is not in session.
For another thing, service as a legislator does not involve any curriculum at all, let alone any “study [of] the law.” Every legislator is a member of the body that makes the law, but many legislators know next to nothing about the law as an academic discipline. They participate by bringing or developing an expertise in public policy, or some particular field of public policy.
Where do you “specifically remember” this example from?
Yes: lawyer.
This thread has already explored the nuances of the terms lawyer, attorney, and attorney at law.
Again, the term lawyer encompasses the professional practice of law, which includes all these activities. A lawyer is an attorney when he or she has formed a professional relationship with a client whom the lawyer is representing or counseling. A lawyer is an advocate when he or she is appearing on a client’s behalf before a court or other tribunal. A lawyer is a counselor when he or she is advising a client about the law (which may or may not involve acting as an advocate).