It’s funny that within a few days I’ve been asked twice, in different threads, to contribute something about the role of notaries in civil law jurisdictions, so I’m using this opportunity to link to my post in the other thread. @Slow_Moving_Vehicle and @Pardel-Lux are right: In the civil law, notary is a highly prestigious and lucrative job which only fully qualified lawyers are admitted to, and even those typically compete for one of the rare, much-coveted positions. Whereas in common law countries, as I understand it, notaries public don’t have legal training and are limited to confirming the authenticity of signatures or copes and the like.
I might add, on top of my response in the other thread, that laws vary among civil law jurisdictions as to whether you can be a pure notary who does nothing else, or whether you can combine being a notary with being an attorney. Even among the states of Germany, rules differ in this regard (although in states where you can be both at the same time, you’re not allowed to notarise a transaction in which you have acted as an attorney; that would be a conflict of interest).