Noun

lawyer (plural lawyers)

1. A professional person qualified (as by a law degree and/or bar exam) and authorized to practice law, i.e. conduct lawsuits and/or give legal advice.
2. By extension, a legal layman who argues points of law.

Synonyms

• advocate
• attorney
• counselor

Derived terms

• lawyerly
• (by law specialism) corporate lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political and social authority, and deliver justice. Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers to perform legal services.

The role of the lawyer varies significantly across legal jurisdictions, and so it can be treated here in only the most general terms. More information is available in country-specific articles (see below).

Lawyers are people who practice law. In most countries, lawyers enter their profession through a period of specialized study. Lawyers are a frequent target of criticism, in part because they are often the public face of unscrupulous parties such as persons being tried for crimes, because they employ a specialized jargon which makes it difficult for persons without a legal education to receive the benefits of the legal system without hiring a lawyer, and because they make up a disproportionate percentage of politicians.

Sourced

• I pleaded your cause, Sextus, having agreed to do so for two thousand sesterces How is it that you have sent me only a thousand? "You said nothing," you tell me, "and this cause was lost through you." You ought to give me so much the more, Sextus, as I had to blush for you.
  • Martial, Epigrams, Bk. VIII, Ep. 18, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 410.

• Dick: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Cade: Nay, that I mean to do.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry the Sixth, Part II, IV, ii (1623)

• Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?
  • Anthony Trollope, Miss Mackenzie (1865), ch. 17 (Project Gutenburg e-text)

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Sun Jul 18 03:44:12 2010