Talk:Attorney at law

Disagree with the merge suggestion
I came to this page trying to find out the difference between an Attorney at Law and a normal Attorney. Specifically, I thought it might represent the difference between a trial lawyer and, for example, a patent lawyer. With the proposed merge, this sort of question will become less clear and the purpose of an encyclopedia, to provide a precise context for a specific word or phrase will be hindered by the naming ambiguity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.113.131 (talk) 02:34, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Is a Pro Se (pro per) an attorney?
As in "I'm my own attorney". Laws are in place to protect and assist attorneys-at-law. No mention that they help pro ses. But if a self-represented litigant can use the word "attorney" applied to themselves, he/she can claim the protection too. An attorney not-at-law. This is an important distinction. What say you? JohnClarknew (talk) 00:28, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, a person who is pro se is not an attorney but just self-represented. Saying "I am my own attorney" is just an idiom. Of course, it is not uncommon to see a pro se attorney, but that is a person representing himself who also happens to be an attorney.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * California Code of Civil Procedure, under its provisions for disqualifying a judge, states, under article CCP170.1(a)(6)(B) Bias or prejudice toward a lawyer in the proceeding may be grounds for disqualification.  This is about disqualifying a judge for bias or prejudice towards - wait for it - only a lawyer? But he can be biased or prejudiced towards a self-represented person, a Pro Se/Pro Per?  Does this make sense? Is that the intention of the Judicial Council, who make the rules?  Can we have some U.S. lawyer input here?  JohnClarknew (talk) 08:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The Judicial Council only promulgates the Rules of Court. It's the Legislature with the consent of the Governor who enacts amendments to the California Code of Civil Procedure.  See civil procedure in the United States.  As for your question about that particular clause of CCP 170.1, that makes zero sense.  You're focusing on a non-issue.  There are at least three other provisions of that statute that cover situations where a judge is biased against a party, self-represented or not.  If you don't understand the statute, you need to hire a lawyer.
 * No lawyer, myself included, is interested in tutoring a newbie for free in the fine art of statutory interpretation, which takes at least a week of face-to-face time to teach properly and one to two years to fully master. It's also completely irrelevant to the topic of this article.  See What Wikipedia is not. --Coolcaesar (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the pro bono advice. You talk exactly like a lawyer. Weaselly.  And I fail to read 3 similar provisions in the law covering a self-represented Pro Per''. Check it.   CCP170.1. And this subject should indeed be mentioned in the article.  IMHO, contrary to your IMO.  JohnClarknew (talk) 15:13, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My further research reveals that we pro pers (pro ses) are indeed covered, in CCP 170.3(a)(2)(A) which reads "The judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party." So I'm happy to close the book on this question. CCP170.3 JohnClarknew (talk) 07:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "[O]ne to two years to fully master"? I would say one to two years to become competent at parsing, and a lifetime to master.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Japan
I thought they spoke Japanese, so how can attorney-at-law be the official term there? Is it an English loanword? In which case, why did they abandon whatever their native Japanese word for a lawyer was? Or is it merely the official translation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.34.239 (talk) 14:03, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Look up Attorneys in Japan. This is the usual translation for the lawyers known as benjoshi, as opposed to the Judicial scriveners (shihō shoshi) who wanted to change their English-language designation to "solicitor," and Administrative Scriveners (gyosei shoshi). NRPanikker (talk) 06:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC) NRPanikker (talk) 07:00, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Origin/Usage
Was hoping this article would have some info on the origin/grammar behind 'attorney at law' vs 'attorney' or 'attorney practicing law' or 'attorney of law,' etc. Assume there's an archaic or poorly known usage of 'at'...? Historically could there have been attorneys 'at' other things besides law? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.135.211.226 (talk) 23:10, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The phrase "at law" is intended to distinguish a lawyer representing a client from any other person representing someone else in a non-legal context holding a power of attorney or proxy. Such person is called an "attorney in fact." This distinction should be made in the article. Zagraniczniak (talk) 08:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Attorneys-at-law no longer exist in England and Wales. An attorney-at-law used to be distinguished from a Solicitor-at-law, Barrister-at-law, Proctor, Advocate, Serjeant-at-law, Notary Public or Scrivener Notary. There are still government law officers whose titles incorporate the name of attorney, proctor, procurator or advocate. NRPanikker (talk) 07:25, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposed merge
I'm not sure what merge suggestion is being referred to in the first section, but I would like to propose a merge of the separate pages for Attorney at law, Solicitor, Barrister, etc. into Lawyer, which already includes a lot of the material. The other articles border on being dictionary-like, which we're not supposed to be (solely). What nuance there is in the different definitions is lost having to bounce back and forth between pages to try to compare. It would make more sense to compare them within sections for each country in the one article, IMO. From a practical standpoint (and the reason it came up), it's tough to figure out, when writing an article, which page one should wiki-link for attorney. —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 08:02, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree. The academic literature on sociology of the professions has consistently recognized that it is impossible to completely reconcile the various fundamentally different views of the legal profession(s) in a coherent fashion.  The Lawyer article (most of which I wrote based on my reading of the literature) expressly acknowledges that fact and attempts only a very high-level treatment of the existing mess, with the mid- and low-level distinctions split out into articles on the specific legal professions and into country-specific articles as is now the case. As you know or should know, it is Wikipedia tradition to push such distinctions out to sub-articles whenever the main article on a subject gets too long and detailed, so the merger you propose would be promptly undone by other editors.  Please get thee to a decent academic library (use WorldCat) and read a few books on the issue (starting with Lawyers in Society, Abel and Lewis's collection of papers presented at the landmark symposium on the subject) before arguing further from a position of ignorance.   --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The last sentence was completely unnecessary. It's hardly reasonable to expect an editor who cares enough about trying to get things right to "read a few books on the issue" to figure out where to link "attorney". Calling someone ignorant for raising the issue is likely only to make them care less. Well done . —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 16:14, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I also disagree. The articles should stay as separate entities. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:58, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Patent attorney
Defacto very few uk patent attorneys are solicitors or barristers. And pretty much everyone has a technical degree as it is required to register as a European patent attorney (or lengthy industrial experience).

As a patent attorney i think this article conveys an inaccurate impression of our profession.

J. Ridout Chartered UK and European patent attorney 213.55.224.115 (talk) 20:59, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * There is a separate article Patent attorney. This article merely points out that the term "attorney" is now rarely used in the UK and links to that article. So I fail to see how it "conveys an inaccurate impression of our profession". -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:12, 25 January 2023 (UTC)