Solicitors, Lawyers, advicates and Barristers

We have all heard the term ‘lawyer’ used in our everyday lives.

The term has become, especially within the UK, a blanket word used to describe a wide variety of people who are trained in, and practice law.

The definition contained in many legal dictionaries will read that a lawyer is someone who is currently practising law or who has studied law, such as an attorney, counsel, solicitor or barrister.

England and Wales, as the birthplaces of common law jurisdictions, have a legal system that has evolved and developed since the Dark Ages. This process of evolution has come to focus in on a central dichotomy between solicitors and barristers, who can both be labelled ‘lawyers’ in the popular everyday usage of the word.

In Scotland the term ‘lawyer’ is used to refer to a more specific range of legal actors, namely advocates and solicitors.

Advocates

In Scots law an advocate is someone who is granted the legitimate authority to speak on behalf of another person in a legal context. This could be because the person being represented by the advocate lacks legal knowledge or the ability to speak for themselves.

In Scotland the Faculty of Advocates located in Edinburgh is responsible for regulating all advocates.

Barristers

A barrister in England and Wales’ common law system can be broadly compared to an advocate in Scots law in the fact that they can perform courtroom advocacy for clients. The main difference, however, is that in England and Wales a barrister is rarely hired by clients themselves but rather is instructed to act on a client’s behalf by a solicitor.

The other main difference is the fact that they cannot ‘conduct litigation’ or speak on behalf of their client in court unless instructed to by a solicitor.

Solicitors

Solicitors differ from barristers in a number of ways, although the distinction is being increasingly broken down and the common law dichotomy ‘fused.’

Solicitors generally have much more direct access to clients and as such are usually based much more in offices than courtrooms.

The main difference between a solicitor and a barrister or an advocate is that the solicitor is an attorney. What this means is that the solicitor has the legal right to act in place of their clients in legal proceedings and can therefore ‘conduct litigation’ by writing letters and making applications to court, something a barrister or advocate is not allowed to do.

If you need legal advice or representation from either a barrister or an experienced solicitor, our Find a Solicitor Service will be able to provide you with the help your case requires.