A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching the philosophy, hypothesis and history of law, and giving expert legal opinions. Often, barristers are also recognised as legal scholars.
In its most general sense, the practice of law involves giving legal advice to clients, drafting legal documents for clients, and representing clients in legal negotiations and court proceedings such as lawsuits, and is applied to the professional services of a lawyer or attorney at law, barrister, solicitor, or civil law notary. However, there is a substantial amount of overlap between the practice of law and various other professions where clients are represented by agents. These professions include real estate, banking, accounting, and insurance. Moreover, a growing number of legal document assistants (LDAs) are offering services which have traditionally been offered only by lawyers and their employee paralegals. Many documents may now be created by computer-assisted drafting libraries, where the clients are asked a series of questions that are posed by the software in order to construct the legal documents.
IANAL is a Usenet and chat abbreviation (initialism) for the expansion "I am not a lawyer". The expansion may be used by non-lawyers who are seeking to avoid accusations of unauthorized practice of law and are not making any recommendation to the particular addressee of their remarks.
An 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 counselor and lawyer. As of April 2011, there were 1,225,452 licensed attorneys in the United States. A 2012 survey conducted by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell determined 58 million consumers in the U.S. sought an attorney in the last year and that 76 percent of consumers used the Internet to search for an attorney.
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received a "call to the bar". "The bar" is now used as a collective noun for barristers, but literally referred to the wooden barrier in old courtrooms, which separated the often crowded public area at the rear from the space near the judges reserved for those having business with the Court. Barristers would sit or stand immediately behind it, facing the judge, and could use it as a table for their briefs.
Admission to the bar in the United States is the granting of permission by a particular court system to a lawyer to practice law in the jurisdiction and before those courts. Each U.S. state and similar jurisdiction has its own court system and sets its own rules for bar admission, which can lead to different admission standards among states. In most cases, a person is "admitted" or "called" to the bar of the highest court in the jurisdiction and is thereby authorized to practice law in the jurisdiction. In addition, Federal Courts of the United States, although often overlapping in admission standards with states, set their own requirements for practice in each of those courts.
A paralegal is an individual who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency, or other entity and who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible. Paralegals perform tasks requiring knowledge of the law and legal procedures, but the exact nature of their work and limitations that the law places on the tasks they are allowed to undertake vary between nations and jurisdictions. A paralegal is not a lawyer but is typically employed by a law office or internal legal department of a company; paralegals are typically not allowed to offer legal services independently in most jurisdictions. Paralegals operate under a form of independent legal ethics, but with few exceptions must also typically conduct their work under the formal supervision of an attorney. In some jurisdictions, paralegals can conduct their own business and are called Law Agents, providing services such as settlements, court filings, legal research and other auxiliary legal services; these tasks often have instructions from a solicitor attached.
Legal ethics, principles of conduct that members of the legal profession are expected to observe in their practice. They are an outgrowth of the development of the legal profession itself.
The Attorney General of the State of Maryland is the chief legal officer of the State of Maryland in the United States and is elected by the people every four years with no term limits. To run for the office a person must be a citizen of and qualified voter in Maryland and must have resided and practiced law in the state for at least ten years.
The State Bar of Texas is an agency of the judiciary under the administrative control of the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Bar is responsible for assisting the Texas Supreme Court in overseeing all attorneys licensed to practice law in Texas. It is the fifth largest organization of lawyers in the United States. The State Bar is headquartered in the Texas Law Center at 1414 Colorado Street in Austin.
A state bar association is a bar association that represents or seeks to represent the attorneys practicing law in a particular U.S. state. Their functions differ from state to state, but often include administration of the state bar examination, regulation of Continuing Legal Education and other requirements, and discipline of attorneys for ethical or other violations. State bars typically provide services for members such as maintaining a directory of attorneys in the state, facilitating social events for attorneys, publishing a bar journal and providing classes to fulfill these CLE credits requirements.
The Massachusetts Attorney General is an elected constitutionally defined executive officer of the Massachusetts Government. The officeholder is the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The officeholder also acts as an advocate and resource for the Commonwealth and its residents in many areas, including consumer protection, combating fraud and corruption, protecting civil rights, and maintaining economic competition. The current Attorney General is Maura Healey.
An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are distinct practising certificates.
Continuing legal education (CLE), also known as mandatory or minimum continuing legal education (MCLE) or, in some jurisdictions outside the United States, as continuing professional development, consists of professional education for attorneys that takes place after their initial admission to the bar. Within the United States, U.S. attorneys in many states and territories must complete certain required CLE in order to maintain their U.S. licenses to practice law. Outside the United States, lawyers in various jurisdictions, such as British Columbia in Canada, must also complete certain required CLE. However, some jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia and Israel, recommend, but do not require, that attorneys complete CLE.
Attorney misconduct is unethical or illegal conduct by an attorney. Attorney misconduct may include: conflict of interest, over billing, refusing to represent a client for political or professional motives, false or misleading statements, hiding evidence, abandoning a client, failing to disclose all relevant facts, arguing a position while neglecting to disclose prior law which might counter the argument, and in some instances having sex with a client.
The Attorney General of Israel stands at the head of the legal system of the executive branch and the head of the public prosecution from the state. The Attorney General is the person who advises the government in legal matters, represents the state's authorities in the courts, and advises in preparation of law memoranda of the government in general and the Justice Minister in particular.
The Nevada Attorney General is the top legal officer for the state of Nevada. The functions of the office are set forth in Nevada Revised Statutes, Chapter 228. The Attorney General represents the people of Nevada in civil and criminal matters before trial, appellate and the supreme courts of Nevada and the United States. The Attorney General also serves as legal counsel to state officers and, with few exceptions, to state agencies, boards and commissions.
Cheryl Krusen is a Caribbean lawyer. A dual national of Jamaica and Belize, she has served in legal positions in various countries for three decades.
The Alaska Bar Association is a mandatory bar association responsible to the Alaska Supreme Court for the admission and discipline process of attorneys for the State of Alaska. The association is governed by a Board of Governors with nine attorneys elected by the Bar's members and three public members appointed by the governor of Alaska. The Bar offers Continuing Legal Education and other member and public services, and currently has more than 4,000 members. The association is also responsible for administering the bar examination for the State of Alaska. The Bar has several membership categories, the most common of which are active in-state; active out-of-state; Inactive, senior, and retired.
