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Different legal jurisdictions have different requirements in the determination of who is recognized as a lawyer. As a result, the meaning of the term "lawyer" may vary from place to place.

Some jurisdictions have two types of lawyers, barrister and solicitors, while others fuse the two. A barrister (also known as an advocate or counselor in some jurisdictions) is a lawyer who typically specializes in arguing before courts, particularly in higher courts. A solicitor (or attorney) is a lawyer who is trained to prepare cases and give advice on legal subjects. Depending on jurisdiction, solicitors can also represent people in lower courts but do not ordinarily have rights of audience in higher courts. Both solicitors and barristers are trained in law. However, in jurisdictions where there is a split profession, only barristers are admitted as members of a bar association.

The distinction between barristers and solicitors originated in the English legal system, but many countries which have adopted English law have eliminated the distinction. Countries such as New Zealand, Canada (except for Quebec, which practices civil law), India, Pakistan, and the US have adopted a fused profession, where all lawyers have the privileges of both barristers and solicitors.

Some fused-profession jurisdictions use one term to describe lawyers generally. For example, US lawyers are typically referred to as "attorneys", while Indian and Pakistani lawyers are known as "advocates". Other fused jurisdictions use terms such as "barrister and solicitor" or "attorney and counselor" to describe lawyers in general.

Nonetheless, the terminology of "barrister" and "solicitor" may still be applied to lawyers who deal in the specific kinds of work barristers and solicitors generally do. In countries like the US, however, the term "trial lawyer" typically describes the work of a lawyer who specialises primarily in arguing cases.

Nonetheless, in countries like England, Wales, Australia, and South Africa, the distinction between barristers and solicitors remain. Additionally, England and Wales have many other classifications of lawyers, which include registered foreign lawyers, patent attorneys, trademark attorneys, licensed conveyancers, public notaries, commissioners for oaths, immigration advisers and chartered legal executives. Under the English Legal Services Act 2007, "lawyer" is not a protected title. In other jurisdictions, like the United States, there are strict restrictions on who may call themselves a lawyer, with paralegals and patent agents generally disallowed.

Responsibilities In most countries, particularly civil law countries, a tradition has existed of giving many legal tasks to a variety of civil law notaries, clerks, and scriveners. These countries do not have "lawyers" in the American sense, insofar as that term refers to a single type of general-purpose legal services provider; rather, their legal professions consist of a large number of different kinds of law-trained persons, known as jurists, some of whom are advocates who are licensed to practice in the courts. Because each country has traditionally had its own method of dividing up legal work among its legal professionals, it has been difficult to formulate accurate generalizations that cover all the countries with multiple legal professions.

Notably, England, the mother of the common law jurisdictions, emerged from the Middle Ages with similar complexity in its legal professions, but then evolved by the 19th century to a single division between barristers and solicitors. An equivalent division developed between advocates and procurators in some civil law countries; these two types did not always monopolize the practice of law, in that they coexisted with civil law notaries.

Several countries that originally had two or more legal professions have since fused or united their professions into a single type of lawyer. Most countries in this category are common law countries, though France, a civil law country, merged its jurists in 1990 and 1991 in response to Anglo-American competition. In countries with fused professions, a lawyer is usually permitted to carry out all or nearly all the responsibilities listed below.

Oral argument in the courts

Oral arguments being made before the New York Court of Appeals Arguing a client's case before a judge or jury in a court of law is the traditional province of the barrister in England and Australia, and of advocates in some civil law jurisdictions. However, the boundary between barristers and solicitors has evolved. In England today, the barrister monopoly covers only appellate courts, and barristers must compete directly with solicitors in many trial courts. In countries like the United States, which have fused legal professions, there are trial lawyers who specialize in trying cases in court, but trial lawyers do not have a legal monopoly like barristers. In some countries, litigants have the option of arguing pro se, or on their own behalf. It is common for litigants to appear unrepresented before certain courts like small claims courts; indeed, many such courts do not allow lawyers to speak for their clients, in an effort to save money for all participants in a small case. In other countries, like Venezuela, no one may appear before a judge unless represented by a lawyer. The advantage of the latter regime is that lawyers are familiar with the court's customs and procedures, and make the legal system more efficient for all involved. Unrepresented parties often damage their own credibility or slow the court down as a result of their inexperience.

Research and drafting of court papersOften, lawyers brief a court in writing on the issues in a case before the issues can be orally argued. They may have to perform extensive research into relevant facts. Also, they draft legal papers and prepare for an oral argument.

In England, the usual division of labor is that a solicitor will obtain the facts of the case from the client and then brief a barrister (usually in writing). The barrister then researches and drafts the necessary court pleadings (which will be filed and served by the solicitor) and orally argues the case.

In Spain, the procurator merely signs and presents the papers to the court, but it is the advocate who drafts the papers and argues the case.

In some countries, like Japan, a scrivener or clerk may fill out court forms and draft simple papers for laypersons who cannot afford or do not need attorneys, and advise them on how to manage and argue their own cases.

Advocacy (written and oral) in administrative hearings In most developed countries, the legislature has granted original jurisdiction over highly technical matters to executive branch administrative agencies which oversee such things. As a result, some lawyers have become specialists in administrative law. In a few countries, there is a special category of jurists with a monopoly over this form of advocacy; for example, France formerly had conseils juridiques (who were merged into the main legal profession in 1991). In other countries, like the United States, lawyers have been effectively barred by statute from certain types of administrative hearings in order to preserve their informality.

Client intake and counseling (with regard to pending litigation) An important aspect of a lawyer's job is developing and managing relationships with clients (or the client's employees, if the lawyer works in-house for a Government as a government lawyer or corporation as a private lawyer). The client-lawyer relationship is explained in six steps. First, the relationship begins with an intake interview where the lawyer gets to know the client personally. The second step is discovering the facts of the client's case. Thirdly is clarifying what the client wants to accomplish. The fourth step is where the lawyer shapes the client's expectations as to what actually can be accomplished. The second to last step begins to develop various claims or defenses for the client. Lastly, the lawyer explains her or his fees to the client.

In England, only solicitors were traditionally in direct contact with the client. The solicitor retained a barrister if one was necessary and acted as an intermediary between the barrister and the client. In most cases barristers were obliged, under what is known as the "cab rank rule", to accept instructions for a case in an area in which they held themselves out as practicing, at a court at which they normally appeared and at their usual rates.

Legal advice Main article: Legal advice Legal advice is the application of abstract principles of law to the concrete facts of the client's case to advise the client about what they should do next. In many countries, only a properly licensed lawyer may provide legal advice to clients for good consideration, even if no lawsuit is contemplated or is in progress. Therefore, even conveyancers and corporate in-house counsel must first get a license to practice, though they may actually spend very little of their careers in court. Failure to obey such a rule is the crime of the unauthorized practice of law.

In other countries, jurists who hold law degrees are allowed to provide legal advice to individuals or to corporations, and it is irrelevant if they lack a license and cannot appear in court. Some countries go further; in England and Wales, there is no general prohibition on the giving of legal advice. Singapore does not have any admission requirements for in-house counsel. Sometimes civil law notaries are allowed to give legal advice, as in Belgium.

In many countries, non-jurist accountants may provide what is technically legal advice in tax and accounting matters.

Protecting intellectual property In virtually all countries, patents, trademarks, industrial designs and other forms of intellectual property must be formally registered with a government agency in order to receive maximum protection under the law. The division of such work among lawyers, licensed non-lawyer jurists/agents, and ordinary clerks or scriveners varies greatly from one country to the next.

The trend in industrialized countries since the 1970s has been to greatly restrict the role of clerks and scriveners in patent and trademark work, and to require these functions to be performed only by lawyers or other licensed agents. This ensures that all work product in such cases receives the full protection of attorney-client privilege.

In the United States, for example, the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) may not speak with anyone but the applicant's attorney about pending applications, and all documents filed in connection with a pending application are automatically accorded attorney-client privilege. The European Patent Office has a similar policy.

In contrast, many countries in the world do not recognize attorney-client privilege for work product related to intellectual property, or have only very limited recognition of the privilege. These countries include China, Japan, Korea, much of Southeast Asia, and most of Latin America. As a result, great care must be taken in these countries to protect intellectual property, as any work product related to a pending application may be disclosed to the public.

Many companies choose to file their applications in the United States or Europe first, and then file for protection in other countries where attorney-client privilege is not recognized. This allows them to keep their work product confidential while they are still in the process of perfecting their invention or design.

Negotiating and drafting contracts In some countries, the negotiating and drafting of contracts is considered to be similar to the provision of legal advice, so that it is subject to the licensing requirement explained above. In others, jurists or notaries may negotiate or draft contracts.

Lawyers in some civil law countries traditionally deprecated "transactional law" or "business law" as beneath them. French law firms developed transactional departments only in the 1990s when they started to lose business to international firms based in the United States and the United Kingdom (where solicitors have always done transactional work).

Conveyancing Conveyancing is the drafting of the documents necessary for the transfer of real property, such as deeds and mortgages. In some jurisdictions, all real estate transactions must be carried out by a lawyer (or a solicitor where that distinction still exists). Such a monopoly is quite valuable from the lawyer's point of view; historically, conveyancing accounted for about half of English solicitors' income (though this has since changed), and a 1978 study showed that conveyancing "accounts for as much as 80 percent of solicitor-client contact in New South Wales." In most common law jurisdictions outside of the United States, this monopoly arose from an 1804 law that was introduced by William Pitt the Younger as a quid pro quo for the raising of fees on the certification of legal professionals such as barristers, solicitors, attorneys, and notaries.

In others, the use of a lawyer is optional and banks, title companies, or realtors may be used instead. In some civil law jurisdictions, real estate transactions are handled by civil law notaries. In England and Wales a special class of legal professionals–the licensed conveyancer–is also allowed to carry out conveyancing services for reward.