(extracted from Ojijo's Rich lawyers: Officers of the Court and Owners of Businesses 2012. ISBN. 978-9966-123-17-6)
Types of Lawyers
It
is customary to speak of the legal profession as being divided into two
branches - barristers and solicitors - but this is a matter of
tradition rather than a mathematical fact. Recent years have seen rapid growth
in the numbers of legal executives
and other para-legals such as
licensed conveyancers. Judges
constitute another branch of the profession - in many countries they have a
career structure entirely separate from the advocates' - and academic lawyers can be considered as
yet another.
counsel or counselor
The
7th edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines Counsel as a
lawyer or group of lawyers representing somebody in court. According to
Wikipedia, the word counsel is used to mean either a single person who pleads a
cause, or collectively, the body of barristers engaged in pleading a case.
Barrister, a word in use in the United Kingdom means a lawyer in Britain who
has the right to argue cases in the higher courts of law.
The
word counsel is thus used during court proceedings to refer to the advocates in
court who are arguing the case before court in that particular court session.
Wikipedia notes that it is customary to use the third person when addressing a
barrister instructed on a case: ‘Counsel is asked to advise’ rather than ‘You
are asked to advise’. The word has no plural thus ‘counsels’ in reference to
more than one person does not exist.
barrister
The
barrister is the only member of the profession who has the right of audience in
any court in the country. Whereas solicitors may be heard only in Magistrates
Courts, County Courts, and in certain circumstances Crown Courts, a barrister
can present and argue a client's case in all these as well as in the High
Court, the Court of Appeal, and the House of Lords. But unlike the solicitor,
the barrister cannot deal with the client direct. Contact between client and
barrister is always supposed to be through the solicitor, although this does
not always work out in practice. The etiquette of the profession demands that
the solicitor, not the client, instructs the barrister. Thus the barrister is
dependent on the solicitor for his living. In England, the rank of
barrister-at-law is conferred exclusively by four unincorporated bodies in
London, known collectively as the Honourable Societies of the Inns of Court.
The four Inns, established between 1310 and 1357, are Lincoln's Inn, Grays Inn,
the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple. Each Inn is owned by its Honourable
Society, has its own library, dining-hall, and chapel, and is governed by its
own senior members - barristers and judges - who are known as Benchers. The
Benchers decide which students will be called to the Bar (made barristers that
is) and which will not. Their decision is final. As with so much else in
British Law, ancient customs attend the passage of students to their final examinations
and admission. Candidates must of course pass examinations, which are set by
the Council for Legal Education, but in addition they must `keep twelve terms'.
In everyday language this means that on a set number of occasions in each legal
term (Hilary, Easter, Trinity and Michelmas) for three years, candidates must
dine at their Inn. If they do so without fail, pass their exams and pay their
fees they will then be called, and the degree, or rank, of barrister-at-law
will be bestowed upon them.
transactional lawyers vis-à-vis litigation lawyers
Generally, there are two
different types of entertainment lawyer, just as there are in other areas of
law - litigation attorneys and transactional attorneys.
Litigation attorneys specialize in offensive and defensive legal actions involving
other parties (i.e. responding to a lawsuit from another person, issuing
preliminary demands or commencing a legal action when one believe someone is
violating his legal or contractual rights, responding to governmental inquiries
or when accused of violations of the law, etc.).
Transactional attorneys specialize in facilitating law firm deals, negotiation tactics,
strategic law firm initiatives, and other contractual matters involved in law
firm (i.e. production deals, talent deals, financing deals, etc.), even when no
other party than the client is involved (i.e. law firm formation, trademarks,
copyrights, etc.).
esquire, esq.
Esq.
is the title used after the name of a male or female lawyer according to the 7th
edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Wikipedia agrees that the
suffix Esq. frequently used in the United States, most commonly designates
individuals licensed to practice law, and applies to both men and women.
Wikipedia adds that although many attorneys in the United States use the form
of address Esq. when signing correspondence or filing documents with a court,
it is usually used only when the reference is in the third person, such as
addressing an envelope, making a formal introduction, or on law firm
letterhead. Esq. is never used with any pre-nominal form of address, such as
Dr., Mr. or Ms. Thus, Brian Bwesigye, Esq. or Mr. Brian Bwesigye would be
correct, but Mr. Brian Bwesigye, Esq. would be incorrect.
attorney
An
attorney is a person who is given power to act on behalf of another in law firm
or legal matters, [1]
and this is done by signing a power of attorney. An attorney, hence, may or may
not be a lawyer. Thus, whereas in common speak, an attorney can mean a lawyer
or advocate, in legal language, an attorney is the bearer of a power of
attorney, not necessarily a lawyer. In the United States however, an attorney at law (or attorney-at-law)
means a practitioner in a court of law who is legally qualified to prosecute
and defend actions in court on behalf of clients. [2]
lawyer
A
lawyer is a general term for a person who is trained and graduated with the
skills and knowledge of the law.[3]The
Black’s Law Dictionary defines a lawyer as a person learned in the law. [4]
However, a lawyer does not necessarily have the qualification to represent a
client in court; for that, the lawyer needs to be also an advocate, also known
as attorney at law, attorney in law, or solicitor or counsel. There are notable
lawyers who are not advocates, including law professors, corporation
secretaries, law firm managers and others with academic qualifications in law. These people have all the justification
to call themselves lawyers. [5]
Graduates of law can use the lawyer tag even when they are not advocates.
commissioner for oath
A
Commissioner of Oaths is an official authorized to take oaths or affirmations
in legal settings. A Commissioner does not certify the truth of declarations,
but rather that oaths have been administered correctly according to the law.
Commissioners of Oaths are generally certified only within the province in
which they work, although, in some cases, the Commissioner may be authorized to
work elsewhere outside of their province.
In
English law, a Commissioner for Oaths is a person appointed by the Lord
Chancellor with power to administer oaths or take affidavits. All practising
solicitors have these powers but must not use them in proceedings in which they
are acting for any of the parties or in which they have an interest.
A
Commissioner for Oaths can include:
و
Notary
Public
و
Solicitor
و
Judge
و
Magistrate
و
Barrister
و
Legal
Executive
و
Licensed
Conveyancer
queens counsel
Queen's Counsel (postnominal QC),
known as King's Counsel (postnominal KC) during the reign of a male sovereign,
are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's
Counsel learned in the law. Membership exists in various Commonwealth jurisdictions
around the world, while in some other jurisdictions the name has been replaced
by one without monarchical connotations, such as "Senior Counsel" or
"Senior Advocate". Queen's Counsel is a status, conferred by the
Crown, that is recognised by courts. Members have the privilege of sitting
within the Bar of court.[6]
As members wear silk gowns of a
particular design (see court dress), the award of Queen's or King's Counsel is
known informally as taking silk, and hence QCs are often colloquially called silks.
Appointments are made from within the legal profession on the basis of merit
rather than a particular level of experience. However, successful applicants
tend to be barristers, or (in Scotland) advocates, or solicitor advocates with
15 years' experience or more.
Queen’s Counsel are barristers
appointed by patent to be one of Her Majesty’s counsel learned in the law. The
appointment is a distinction conferred by the Crown and recognized by the
courts.[7]
The general requirements for
appointment include eminent practice at the Bar, reasonably frequent engagement
in important litigation, professional success dependent on scholarship, Court
experience and sound judgment, reputable private life, principal interest in
the practice of law, and the spread of counsel at the Bars of the main centres.[8]
“Appointment is made only of the
select few regarded as worthy of the prize awarded to the specially diligent,
learned, upright and capable members of the Bar.” (Cox and Spiller, ibid).
In earlier times Queen’s Counsel
were expected to become advocates on behalf of the Sovereign and could not
appear against the Crown with out a licence from the Crown. This restriction no
longer applies and today Queen’s Counsel are regularly engaged by private
citizens in litigation against the Crown.
Queen’s Counsel were described by
Justice Ellis in 2002 as:
“…a tremendous prop to the independence of the Bar.
He/she is a bulwark of freedom on which the private citizen can implicitly rely
in a quest of justice. He/she is a taxi on the rank, obliged, as a taxi is, to
give his/her services to the first-comer irrespective of his/her own social
preferences, provided that the fee can be paid; such cases serve to remind even
scoffers of the magnificent impartiality of our legal system.”[9]
[1] Oxford Dictionary of Law 6th edition
[2] Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary7th
edition
[4] Black’s Law Dictionary
[5] Francis W. B. Legal Practice in Uganda: The Law, Practice and Conduct of Advocates.
Kampala. P. 16
[7] Baker, J. H.
"The English Legal Profession 1450–1550", Lawyers in Early Modern
Europe and America (Wilfred Prest (ed.)), 1981, 20.
[9] Comments addressed to counsel called to the Inner Bar
at the High Court at Wellington on 19 June 2002
(Ojijo is a lawyer, poet, author, public speaker, business systems
coach, career mentor, and Luo culture expert:+256776100059: ojijo@allpublicspeakers.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment