Robbins: What’s in a lawyer’s (oops, an attorney’s) name?

Lawyers and attorneys and counselors and solicitors and esquires and barristers, oh my! Why are lawyers called so many different things? OK, OK, there are a few choice others; I’ve only included the ones fit to print in a family newspaper. 

But still …

Why are there at least six accepted terms for lawyers? How are they different, and does it matter?

Let’s start — as Julie Andrews once sang — at the beginning, which, as the lyrics go, is a very good place to start.

A lawyer is, not in the least surprisingly, someone who is licensed to practice law. More precisely, a lawyer can be defined as “a person learned in the law (according to accepted dictionary definitions); an attorney, counsel, or solicitor.”

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Well, that’s special. And it leads, naturally, to the question, then, “What are attorneys, counselor, or solicitors?”

Let’s define the word “attorney” this way. An attorney, in the most general sense, is someone who acts on behalf of another. They are an agent or substitute who is appointed and authorized to act in the place or stead of another. An attorney is someone who, with your authority, acts on your behalf.

A “counsel” is defined as — wait for it — “an attorney or counselor.” This stuff gets pretty circular. A “counsel” gives advice and assistance regarding legal matters. Just like a therapist counsels you in matters of the psyche and your minister or rabbi or imam guides the ship of your moral being, a legal counselor guides you to what are hopefully safe harbors in your legal affairs.

What a “solicitor” is gets a tad more complicated. Deriving from the days of Jolly Olde, a solicitor is, first and foremost, distinguished from a “barrister.” Let’s hold this particular horse for just a second. 

As you may know, a lawyer-attorney-counselor-whatever is licensed to practice law before the “Bar” and to qualify to practice, said lawyer-attorney-counselor-whatever must pass the “bar” exam. You may have thought that lawyers pass the bar and practice before a bar because lawyers-attorneys-counselors can sometimes drive you to drink. But, alas, no! This all goes back to the English Mothership.

In England, what “the Bar” means, simply, is “the Court.” In its strictest sense, what it means is the court sitting at full strength, a proceeding involving all the judges. Thus, a trial “at bar” is one before the full court as distinguished from a trial before a single judge.

In another sense, “the bar” means the collective of all the attorneys and counselors at law, all the members of the legal profession. “The Bar” is thus distinguished from “the Bench,” which comprises the collective of all the judges and the judiciary.

“The bar” may also mean a particular place within the courtroom, a place occupied by the accused in a criminal proceeding. Historically, “the bar” is where the prisoner stands at trial, which circumstance yielded the term a “prisoner at the bar.”

In England, “the bar” is a partition or railing (a bar, if you will) bisecting the courtroom, the intent of which is to separate the public (or gallery) from the space occupied by the judges, counsel, jury and others directly concerned in the prosecution of the case. 

An interesting aside — germane, however, to our discussion here — involves the distinction in the British system, where, as you know, parsing class is everything, between solicitors and barristers. “Barristers” are trial lawyers who “try” cases before the higher courts. “Solicitors” are members of the bar who represent clients in the lower courts and, as such, are officers of the trial courts. Accordingly, in British courts at least, solicitors are admitted on the working side of the bar while barristers (sometimes called “outer-barristers”) must stand behind the bar.

So, solicitors are on one side of the bar, barristers on the other.  Both, however, are attorneys-lawyers-counselors in the way we think of them.

“Esquire” then? What of that? Why do we address letters or “cc” emails to So-and-So, Esq., which is a heads-up that the person is a lawyer?

In text speak, I’ve got to smh. “Esquire” simply means (again derived from English custom) a person of distinction, somewhere between a gentleman and a knight. Hmmm. As if lawyers are the only distinguished folks on Earth, and all of them so much. Sort of hoity-toity if you ask me. Anyway, it has come to be accepted as the common currency in referring to a lawyer. Think of it, if you will, in the same way as calling a M.D. “doctor” when most lawyers, myself included, hold a Juris Doctorate. We are doctors of law but are called “something between a gentleman and a knight” instead of the vastly simpler “doctor.”

So, at the end of the day, does any of this really make a difference? Nah, not really. Call me whatever you like. Even what we dare not print here. I’ll likely wave and smile. After all, I’m a gentleman. But not quite a knight.

Rohn K. Robbins is an attorney licensed before the Bars of Colorado and California who practices in the Vail Valley with the Law Firm of Caplan & Earnest, LLC. His practice areas include business and commercial transactions; real estate and development; family law, custody, and divorce; and civil litigation. Robbins may be reached at 970-926-4461 or Rrobbins@CELaw.com. His novels, “How to Raise a Shark (an apocryphal tale),” “The Stone Minder’s Daughter,” “Why I Walk so Slow” and “He Said They Came From Mars (stories from the edge of the legal universe)” and “The Theory of Dancing Mice” are currently available at fine booksellers.