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 court on the retainer of clients. Alternative terms include counselor (or counsellor-at-law) 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 United States legal system does not draw a distinction between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not, unlike many other common law jurisdictions. For example, jurisdictions in the United Kingdom distinguish between solicitors who do not plead in court, and the barristers of the English and Welsh system and the Northern Ireland system and the advocates of the Scottish system, who do plead in court. Likewise, civil law jurisdictions distinguish between advocates and civil law notaries. An additional factor that differentiates the American legal system from other countries is that there is no delegation of routine work to notaries public.
Attorneys may be addressed by the post-nominal letters Esq., the abbreviated form of the word Esquire.
Attorney, Lawyers Specialization:-
Many American attorneys limit their practices to specialized fields of law. Often distinctions are drawn between different types of attorneys, but, with the exception of patent law practice, these are neither fixed nor formal lines. Examples include:
Outside counsel (law firms) v. in-house counsel (corporate legal department)
Plaintiff v. defense attorneys (some attorneys do both plaintiff and defense work, others only handle certain types of cases like personal injury, business etc.)
Transactional (or "office practice") attorneys (who negotiate and draft documents and advise clients, rarely going to court) v. litigators (who advise clients in the context of legal disputes both in and out of court, including lawsuits, arbitrations and negotiated settlements)
Trial attorneys (who argue the facts, such as the late Johnnie Cochran) v. appellate attorneys (who argue the law, such as David Boies)
Despite these descriptions, some states forbid or discourage claims of specialization in particular areas of law unless the attorney has been certified by their state bar or state board of legal specialization.
Some states grant formal certifications recognizing specialties. In California, for example, bar certification is offered in family law, appellate practice, criminal law, bankruptcy, estate planning, immigration, taxation and workers' compensation. Any attorney meeting the bar requirements in one of these fields may represent themselves as a specialist. The State Bar of Texas, for example, formally grants certification of specialization in 21 select areas of law.
The majority of lawyers practicing in a particular field may typically not be certified as specialists in that field (and state board certification is not generally required to practice law in any field). For example, the State Bar of Texas (as of mid-2006) reported 77,056 persons licensed as attorneys in that state (excluding inactive members of the Bar), while the Texas Board of Legal Specialization reported, at about the same time, only 8,303 Texas attorneys who were board certified in any specialty.[8] Indeed, of the 8,303 certified specialists in Texas, the highest number of attorneys certified in one specific field at that time was 1,775 (in personal injury trial law).
Lawyer , Attorney Training and accreditation :-
In the United States, the practice of law is conditioned upon admission to practice of law, and specifically admission to the bar of a particular state or other territorial jurisdiction. Regulation of the practice of law is left to the individual states, and their definitions vary. Arguing cases in the federal courts requires separate admission.
Bar examinations
In the canonical case, lawyers seeking admission must earn a Juris Doctor degree from a law school approved by the jurisdiction, and then pass a bar exam administered by it. Typically, there is also a character and fitness evaluation, which includes a background check. However, there are exceptions to each of these requirements.
Degrees in law
The degree earned by prospective attorneys in the United States is generally a Juris Doctor (Latin for "Doctor of Jurisprudence"; abbreviated J.D.).
The highest law degrees obtainable in the United States are Doctor of Juridical Science (Scientiae Juridicae Doctor, abbreviated S.J.D. or J.S.D.). The S.J.D. is akin to an academic degree that, like the Ph.D., is research-based and requires a dissertation (an original contribution to the academic study of law).
Law students in court
Some courts allow law students to act as "certified student attorneys" after the satisfactory completion of their first year of law school and the completion of particular second- and third-year courses with subjects such as evidence.
Many states allow students to argue in front of a court as a certified legal intern (CLI), provided they meet certain prerequisites, such as having completed at least half of their law education, having taken or be taking the law school's ethics class and being under the supervision of a qualified and licensed attorney.
Unlicensed practice of law :-
Some states provide criminal penalties for falsely holding oneself out to the public as an attorney at law and the unauthorized practice of law by a non-attorney.
An Attorney at law or lawyer must be an individual admitted to a state bar and licensed by a state, not just a person with a professional law degree.
A few areas of law, such as patent law, bankruptcy, or immigration law, are mandated by the U.S. Constitution to be strictly under federal jurisdiction. In this case, state courts and bar associations are not allowed to restrict the practice of that field of law.
