Attorney Arena

There is plenty of definitions of ‘attorney’ on the Web:

• A person legally appointed by another to act as his or her agent in the transaction of business, specifically one qualified and licensed to act for plaintiffs and defendants in legal proceedings.
• Any person legally empowered to act as agent for, or in behalf of, another; esp., a lawyer
• Lawyer: a professional person authorized to practice law; conducts lawsuits or gives legal advice
• A legal agent or person who practices law.
• Or lawyer means an individual who is a member in good standing of the highest court of any State, including an individual who is in good standing of the highest court of one State and under an order of any court or Federal agency suspending, enjoining, restraining, disbarring or otherwise …
• A lawyer who is licensed to practice law and represent another person in legal matters.
• A legal document that appoints another person to act on one’s behalf in business or legal matters. Powers of attorney continue to be in force until they are cancelled by the person granting the power or that person dies.
• This is can refer to any agent or someone authorized to act for another, but most frequently it indicates a person who has been qualified by a state or federal court to provide legal services, including appearing in court.
• A person licensed to practice law.
• A person appointed to act for another in business or legal matters. Also known as a lawyer.
• A person appointed to act in another’s place in some formal transaction. An obsolete name for a Solicitor.
• (planting attorney): Non-resident proprietors hired someone to whom they gave a ‘power of attorney’ to manager their properties. This ‘attorney’ might be a resident proprietor, a merchant, a lawyer, or an old experienced overseer. (See Occupations)
• A person appointed by written power of attorney and according to law by another to represent or act in place of that person.
• Any individual authorized by a state or federal court to practice law.
• A graduate of an accredited law school and member in good standing of the Bar Association. Only attorneys can give legal advice. It is essential that real estate professionals who are not attorneys refrain from giving legal advice.

However the most common case is a legal attorney: Once admitted to practice by the highest court of a state (a function sometimes administered by the state’s bar association), an American attorney may file legal pleadings and argue cases in any state court (federal courts usually require separate admission), provide legal advice to clients, and draft important legal documents such as wills, trusts, deeds, and contracts.

In some states, real estate closings may be performed only by attorneys, even though the attorney’s role in a closing may involve primarily notarization of documents and disbursement of settlement funds through an escrow account.

Practicing law includes interviewing a client to identify the legal question, analyzing the question, researching relevant law, devising legal solutions to problems, and executing such solutions through specific tasks such as drafting a contract or filing a motion with a court.

Most academic legal training is directed to identifying legal issues, researching facts and law, and arguing both the facts and law in favor of either side in any case.

For several years, law schools have sent through far more students than new job openings have become available. This has often lead to attorneys (once they pass the bar) seeking work in other occupations, either by choice or by the lack of employment opportunities. This has led to a market in legal temps or contract attorneys, where attorneys spend a certain period of time working on tasks such as discovery for a case.

Another common usage of this term lies within the ‘contract attorney‘ notion. In the beginning, the work of contract attorneys often entailed such activities as document review in response to a document subpoena or a request for production of documents. In such projects, contract attorneys were called upon to review tens of thousands, if not millions, of pages of documents and mark them as responsive to a particular request, or protected as attorney work product or under the attorney-client privilege. Large firms quickly learned that contract attorneys could perform this work much more cost effectively than high-priced associates.

The role of the contract attorney has evolved, and now many contract, or freelance, attorneys perform legal research, draft legal briefs, and provide a full range of other services to law firms of all sizes. These attorneys typically work for themselves, rather than for temporary agencies, and provide their services to other law firms on an as-needed basis.

Some people who hold juris doctor degrees, but who are awaiting bar admission, work as temporary professionals in law firms doing the same type of work as contract attorneys. In addition, a law firm may, due to a conflict of interest, be required to hire a Cumis counsel in certain cases.

Contract attorneys typically work on a project by project basis and are not full-time law firm employees. However, an increasing trend in contract law is to develop long-lasting relationships with firms that regularly or semi-regularly send work to the contract attorney. Many small firms find that the use of contract attorneys provides them the flexibility to grow their business without hiring salaried employees.

According to the American Bar Association, law firms can add a surcharge to the fees of their contract attorneys so long as the final fee charged to the client is reasonable. Particularly in a slowing economy, the use of contract attorneys gives firms a competitive edge in the marketplace, helping them to control costs while increasing profitability.