Attorney at Law

An attorney at law (or attorney-at-law) in the United States is a practitioner in a court of law who is legally qualified to prosecute and defend actions in such court on the retainer of clients. Alternative terms include attorney and counselor (or counsellor) at law, attorney, and lawyer.[1]

The U.S. legal system has a united legal profession, which means that it does not draw a distinction between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not. Many other common law jurisdictions, as well as some civil law jurisdictions, do draw such a distinction: for example, the division of solicitor and barrister (advocate) found in the United Kingdom, and the division of advocate and civil law notary in France. An additional factor which differentiates the American legal system from other countries is that there is no delegation of routine work to notaries public or their civil law equivalent.

Attorney-in-Fact and Attorney-at-Law

Strictly speaking, an "attorney is one who acts on behalf of another person in some capacity. An "attorney-in-fact" is akin to an agent who acts on behalf of another person, typically with respect to business, property, or personal matters. Such an agent does not have to be licensed to practice law and may not need to have any license at all.

By contrast an attorney-at-law, or lawyer, is a person trained and licensed by a relevant jurisdiction to practice law by representing clients in legal matters and giving legal advice. In the United States, the term attorney, standing alone, generally refers to this meaning rather than to "attorney-in-fact".

The term "attorney-in-fact" is mostly seen in the context of someone representing another person's interest in business negotiations or regarding signature pages on documents where the person signing is doing so on the basis of a power of attorney. The term power of attorney generally relates to an attorney-in-fact, not an attorney-at-law. Alternative titles for "power of attorney" type documents in non-U.S. jurisdictions include the French "Pouvoir", the German "Vollmacht" and the Portuguese "Procuração".

Attorney-at-Law and Attorney General

The term Attorney General is used to designate the chief law enforcement officer of a state or other political jurisdiction. The Attorney General is a lawyer who represents the government, prosecutes criminal cases, defends the government from lawsuits against it, and brings civil lawsuits to enforce consumer protection, antitrust, and other laws.

Older U.S. terminology and non-U.S. terminology

In common law jurisdictions outside the United States (e.g., England, Canada, Australia), attorney is incorrect as a general term, and lawyer, barrister, or solicitor are used instead. In these areas, the specific terms Crown attorney, power of attorney, and Attorney General, are also used. In intellectual property, the term patent attorney is commonly used.

In earlier times, some states, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, maintained a divided legal profession, as can still be found in the United Kingdom, consisting of attorneys (who practised in courts of Law), solicitors (who practised in courts of Equity ) and barristers, also known as counsel, whom solicitors and attorneys instructed to appear in the higher courts. In deference to this practice, when an attorney at law is admitted to practice in some states, his or her certificate of admission bears the title Attorney and Counselor-at-Law in recognition of his inheritance of both of these roles.

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

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