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.
A lawyer or attorney is a person who practices law, as an advocate, attorney, attorney at law, barrister, barrister-at-law, bar-at-law, canonist, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, counsellor, solicitor, legal executive, or public servant preparing, interpreting and applying law, but not as a paralegal or charter executive secretary. Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who hire lawyers to perform legal services. The role of the lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions.
Vincent Walker Foster Jr. was a Deputy White House Counsel during the first six months of President Bill Clinton's administration. He had been a partner at Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was a colleague and friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton's and where, as The Washington Post later wrote, he rose to "the pinnacle of the Arkansas legal establishment." At the White House he was unhappy with work in politics and spiraled into depression, and in July 1993 he was found dead by gunshot in a Virginia park. Five official governmental investigations ruled his death a suicide, but several conspiracy theories emerged.
The Watergate scandal was a major federal political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974. The scandal stemmed from the June 17, 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., by five men and the Nixon Administration's subsequent attempts to cover up its involvement in the crime. Soon after the men were arrested, the press and the U.S. Justice Department discovered a connection between cash found on them at the time and a slush fund used by the Nixon re-election campaign committee.
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a Queen's Counsel during the reign of a queen, or King's Counsel during the reign of a king, is a lawyer who is appointed by the monarch of the country to be one of "Her [His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law". The position originated in England. Some Commonwealth countries have either abolished the position, or re-named it to eliminate monarchical connotations, such as "Senior Counsel" or "Senior Advocate".
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. 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 generally are not allowed to offer legal services independently in most jurisdictions. Paralegals operate under a form of independent legal ethics and, with few exceptions, must also 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.
John Joseph Sirica was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he became famous for his role in the trials stemming from the Watergate scandal. He rose to national prominence when he ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over his recordings of White House conversations. Sirica's involvement in the case began when he presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars. He did not believe the claim that they had acted alone, and through the use of provisional sentencing, strongly encouraged them to give information about higher-ups before final sentencing. One defendant, James W. McCord Jr., wrote a letter describing a broader scheme of involvement by people in the Nixon administration. For his role in uncovering the truth about Watergate, Sirica was named Time magazine's Man of the Year in January 1974.
The American Bar Association (ABA), founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation of model ethical codes related to the legal profession. As of fiscal year 2017, the ABA had 194,000 dues-paying members, constituting approximately 14.4% of U.S. attorneys. In 1979, half of all lawyers in the U.S. were members of the ABA. The organization's national headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois; it also maintains a significant branch office in Washington, D.C.
John Wesley Dean III is a former attorney who served as White House Counsel for United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland. After his plea, he was disbarred as an attorney. According to the FBI, Dean was the "master manipulator" of the Watergate affair.
Fred Fisher Fielding is an American lawyer. He held the office of White House Counsel for US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in addition to serving as an Associate and Deputy White House Counsel for Richard Nixon under John Dean. Fielding was also of counsel to the presidential transition of Donald Trump.
The Watergate Seven has come to refer to two different groups of people, both of them in the context of the Watergate scandal. Firstly, it can refer to the five men caught on June 17, 1972, burglarizing the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate complex, along with their two handlers, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who were Nixon campaign aides. All seven were tried before Judge John Sirica in January 1973.
Professional responsibility is the area of legal practice that encompasses the duties of attorneys to act in a professional manner, obey the law, avoid conflicts of interest, and put the interests of clients ahead of their own interests.
Charles Frederick Carson Ruff was a prominent American lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and was best known as the White House Counsel who defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial in 1999.
The National Bar Association (NBA) was founded in 1925 and is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 65,000 lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students. The NBA is organized around 23 substantive law sections, 9 divisions, 12 regions, and 80 affiliate chapters throughout the United States and around the world. The current and 75th president is Juan R. Thomas of Aurora, Illinois.
Jailhouse lawyer is a colloquial term in North American English to refer to an inmate in a jail or other prison who, though usually never having practiced law nor having any formal legal training, informally assists other inmates in legal matters relating to their sentence or to their conditions in prison. Sometimes, he or she also assists other inmates in civil matters of a legal nature. The ability that inmates have to help other illiterate inmates file petition for post conviction relief was first recognized in Johnson v. Avery. This same case also determined that unless states provide reasonable alternative they must allow such action by jailhouse lawyers.
The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) operates under the delegated authority of the Washington Supreme Court to license the state's nearly 41,000 active and inactive lawyers and other legal professionals. In furtherance of its obligation to protect and serve the public, the WSBA both regulates lawyers and other legal professionals and serves its members as a professional association — all without public funding. The WSBA's mission is to serve the public and the members of the Bar, to ensure the integrity of the legal profession, and to champion justice.
Alexander "Alex" Williams is an English film animator and cartoonist. He is the son of animator Richard Williams. He has worked on many animated films, and is the author of the Queens Counsel cartoon strip in The Times, for which he was awarded the Cartoon Art Trust Award for Strip Cartooning in October 2017.
Law practice management (LPM) is the management of a law practice. In the United States, law firms may be composed of a single attorney, of several attorneys, or of many attorneys, plus support staff such as paralegals/legal assistants, secretaries, and other personnel.
Queens Counsel is a British cartoon strip created by Alexander Williams and Graham Francis Defries, which has been published in the law pages of The Times since 1993. It is a satire on law and lawyers. The strip is published under the pseudonym "Steuart and Francis", these being the middle names of the two authors.
Daniel R. White is an American attorney and author. His first book, The Official Lawyer's Handbook,, a satire of the legal profession, was a bestseller in the early 1980s. The success of the Handbook, which ranked #1 on The Washington Post best seller list and presumably drew on White's personal experience practicing law with the Washington, D.C., law firm of Hogan & Hartson, led to television appearances, speaking engagements, and other books, as a result of which The American Lawyer magazine declared White "The Official Lawyer's Comedian."