User talk:Coolcaesar/Attorney-at-law

This article relates to the legal profession as practiced in the United States. For a more general discussion, see Lawyer. For discussion of powers granted to an attorney-in-fact, see Power of attorney. For the Japanese profession, see Attorney at law (Japan).

An attorney-at-law (also known simply as an attorney or lawyer) in the United States is a person licensed to practice law by the highest court of at least one state or territory. Alternative terms include attorney at law and attorney and counselor (or counsellor) at law.

Terminology

In a strict technical sense, an "attorney" is any person who acts on behalf of another person in some capacity. An "attorney-in-fact" is an agent who act on behalf of another in certain contexts like business negotiations or signing documents. Such an agent does not have to be licensed to practice law and may not need to have any license at all. The power of attorney refers to the power held by an attorney-in-fact.

In contrast, an "attorney-at-law" is a person licensed by a U.S. jurisdiction to practice law: they can represent other persons in legal proceedings in a court of law, draft contracts, pleadings, and other documents of legal importance, and provide legal advice. In ordinary American English, the word "attorney," standing alone, usually refers to an attorney-at-law; this is the meaning intended in this article. The word "lawyer" in American English is synonymous with the attorney-at-law.

The term "attorney-at-law" should also not be confused with the title of Attorney General (AG), which is held by the chief law enforcement officer of a government in the United States. The federal government, the 50 states, and some of the territories each have their own Attorney General. The AG is an attorney-at-law who represents the government, prosecutes criminal cases, defends the government from lawsuits brought by private citizens, and brings civil lawsuits to enforce laws in areas like consumer protection and antitrust.

Some attorneys use the post-nominal Esq., the abbreviated form of the word "Esquire."

Responsibilities

Once properly licensed, attorneys can take on a wide range of responsibilities. However, most are highly specialized and take on only a subset of the responsibilities discussed below.

Litigation

Litigation is the process of prosecuting or defending adversarial legal proceedings in a forum before a neutral third party. Traditionally, litigation took place in a court of law before a judge, but today litigators also represent their clients in other contentious arenas, such as the arbitration and the administrative hearing.

Appearance in court

The U.S. has a fused profession and does not distinguish between lawyers who can appear in court and lawyers who cannot. Once an attorney is admitted to the bar of the highest court of a state, the attorney may appear on behalf of a client in that court (and all lower courts), and can sign and file legal pleadings on behalf of a client. Attorneys usually appear in court for trials, as well as oral argument of pretrial motions, preliminary hearings (in criminal cases), case management conferences, settlement conferences, and oral argument of appeals.

Because so many cases are settled or plea bargained prior to trial (well over 90% throughout the U.S.), most court work involves pretrial motions, preliminary hearings, and case management and settlement conferences. However, there are trial lawyers and appellate lawyers who specialize in litigating those high-stakes latter portions of a case.

Admission to federal courts is generally automatic upon paying a fee and providing evidence of membership, in good standing, of the bar of a state court within the federal court's jurisdiction. The exceptions are the bars of federal districts and territories—the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—which have their own selective procedures for admission. Federal district courts in Ohio and Florida also have selective admission procedures.

Appearance before administrative agencies

Some attorneys specialize in appearing in hearings before administrative agencies. Original jurisdiction over a large number of disputes has been diverted by statute from the courts of general jurisdiction to hearings held by administrative agencies. At the state level, common examples include workers' compensation and welfare. Federal agencies like the Federal Communications Commission and the United States Patent and Trademark Office also hold hearings.

When a dispute is covered by administrative law, then plaintiffs must prove that they have exhausted all administrative options before they can sue in a court of law. Usually, the administrative law judge is the primary factfinder and decisionmaker in the administrative context.

Participation in and management of pretrial discovery

At present, civil procedure in the United States allows for extensive pretrial discovery among parties to a lawsuit, with minimal judicial supervision (at least in theory). The broad discovery regime in the U.S. is supposed to prevent surprises at trial and to enable parties to assess the relative strengths of their positions, which in turn should facilitate pretrial settlement.

Thus, American litigators spend a significant portion of their careers attending depositions of party witnesses, nonparty witnesses, and expert witnesses; reviewing documents to be produced to the other side; reviewing documents produced by the other side; drafting interrogatories and requests for admissions; and responding to interrogatories and requests for admissions. Document production, interrogatories, and requests for admissions can be partially delegated to law clerks, paralegals, and secretaries, but attorneys always sign the finished work product that is served upon opposing counsel, and bear ultimate responsibility for its completeness, authenticity, and accuracy.

Pretrial discovery also involves a significant amount of pretrial motion practice. A party's failure to respond to discovery may cause the other side to file a motion to compel; and a party's oppressive or harassing discovery tactics may cause the other side to file a motion for a protective order. Attorneys are responsible for researching, drafting, and signing all the necessary documents for such motions, as well as arguing the motions in court.

Drafting pleadings and motions

Apart for a few narrow exceptions, only an attorney can sign and file documents in a court on behalf of another person. Typical documents filed in court by a lawyer include complaints and answers as well as all written pretrial and trial motions, a variety of routine notices and forms, and appellate briefs.

Obviously, some of the work that goes into drafting, especially underlying factual and legal research, is partially delegable, and such work is often delegated to other less experienced attorneys or to paralegals.

Counseling/transactional law

Some attorneys do not litigate or do so only rarely. Instead, they counsel clients as to their legal rights, negotiate the details of business transactions (ranging from ordinary contracts for the sale of goods to high-stakes billion-dollar initial public offerings or corporate mergers), and draft the paperwork that makes transactions happen.

Admission

Admission to the bar largely occurs at the state level under the supervision of state supreme courts. Each state has one or more government agencies responsible for admitting, regulating, and disciplining attorneys. There are similar institutions in the U.S. territories as well. The federal courts technically have their own bars to which one must be admitted before practicing therein, but such admission is almost always automatic (after payment of a fee) for anyone admitted to practice in a state or territory over which a federal court has jurisdiction. Some federal district courts in Ohio and Florida require attorneys to pass an additional Federal Bar Examination prior to admission.

In the vast majority of U.S. state and territorial court systems (though there are numerous exceptions as further noted in the Admission to the bar article), an applicant obtains admission to the bar by completing a Juris Doctor degree at a law school accredited by the American Bar Association, undergoing a "good character evaluation" which is essentially a detailed background check, and passing the state bar examination.

Regulation and discipline

In the U.S., an attorney is subject to regulation and discipline by any court to which he or she has been admitted to the bar of, as well as any administrative agency. That is, an attorney who is suspended or disbarred by the courts of one state for breaking the rules in that state may be subject to "reciprocal discipline" in every state in which the attorney is admitted, and may also lose his or her right to appear before the federal courts as well.

Compensation

Attorneys may be compensated in a variety of ways, including contingency fees, hourly fees, or a flat fee on a per-matter basis.

Attorneys may work alone as solo practitioners or together in a law firm. Some attorneys work for government agencies or corporations. Attorneys who work for government agencies and corporations earn an annual salary.

The salaries earned by partners and associates of the largest U.S. firms have skyrocketed since the 1970s.

Criticism

Lawyers in general have been heavily criticized throughout human history. Attorneys in the U.S. are no exception.

Notes

External links

United States

Lawyers - employment and earnings estimates for employed lawyers, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Lawyers - from the BLS "Occupational Outlook Handbook"