Where did the term attorney (or simply its prevalence) originate? In America there is no dichotomy between solicitors and barristers but simply attorneys at law, colloquially just lawyers. Why are they not just solicitors or not just barristers? Further we have attorneys general. Which seems to have replaced the solicitor general. Then are there other types of attorneys than only legal ones?
The US has kept the original meaning More or less. The word entered English from Old French around the turn of the 14th century and meant a person appointed to handle the financial or legal affairs of another. Two branches developed, a common attorney which leads to the modern concept of an attorney under a power of attorney, and an attorney at law. These were qualified people who prepared briefs for barristers in the Common Law courts. The attorneys equivalents in the Chancellery courts were called solicitors. When the courts were merged in the UK in the late 19th century, the term solicitor was kept and attorney was abolished. At about the same time, the courts in the US merged but the Americans kept attorney and abandoned solicitor. Solicitor is still used in some parts of the US to refer to a government lawyer, particularly in the office of solicitor general. The US as well as Commonwealth countries have both an Attorney General and a Solicitor General. The AG is usually a politician and the chief law officer of the government. The SG is usually a civil servant and represents the government in court; for example, when the USA needs to appear in SCOTUS it’s the SG that does it.
I haven't reviewed the filings, but I can tell you that it's perfectly routine for lawyers to describe the other side's position as &quot;plainly without merit,&quot; with no regard for the actual merits. The lawyer's job is to make his client look good, in court and in public; the existence of this question shows that he's doing a good job at least on the latter half of that equation. But in truth, it's such a generic thing to say that no lawyer who hears it will actually think it means anything. In all likelihood, the filing is like most others, in that it makes a good case on some points and a bad case on others, and the opposing lawyer's job is to argue that all of them are bad. In the rarer case that a filing is actually &quot;plainly without merit,&quot; courts can and sometimes do impose penalties under Rule 11, which allows for sanctions against parties and attorneys who make factual assertions that are not supported by reality or arguments that are not supported by the law.
In the west, the profession of being a &quot;lawyer&quot; came into existence under the Roman Empire, though there were sorta-lawyers in Ancient Greece (orators, who could not receive a fee for pleading on behalf of another). In Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Persia and so on, there was nothing like a lawyer – you were to plead your own case if you ended up in a dispute / being accused of a crime. As far as I know, there were no lawyers under Chinese traditional law.
Practising as a barrister in England and Wales requires more than completing academic courses, as Wikipedia will tell you; passing yourself off as a barrister on the basis of a Canadian qualification and a few courses will probably land you in prison. It is not a requirement that you hold British nationality; foreign lawyers can and do represent clients - once they have qualified in England as well. (As asked, your question could also cover Scotland and Northern Ireland, and indeed qualifying as a solicitor (in which case you probably will not practise in court). However, if you are not clear on all the differences, you will not be allowed to practise anyway.)
&quot;Esq&quot; Is short for &quot;Esquire&quot; which was once the lowest level of the English system of titles for nobility and gentry (originally an esquire was a sort of apprentice knight, and later it indicated that a person was a &quot;gentleman&quot; but without any higher title) Lawyers started using it to indicate that although paid professionals, they claimed a social status above that of tradesmen and shopkeepers. It is now largely obsolete, but some lawyers still use it. Most of the other initials refer to the form of business organization that a lawyer or law firm uses. More specifically: &quot;PA&quot; means &quot;professional association&quot; a form of organization which reduces the individual liability of members of the firm. See this q&amp;A A pay is in many ways similar to a corporation or an LLC. &quot;PLLC&quot; means &quot;professional limited liability company&quot; which is a version of an LLC used specifically by groups of doctors and lawyers. &quot;PLC&quot; like &quot;PLLC&quot; means &quot;professional limited liability company&quot;. The two terms are interchangeable when used for law firms, but PLC is also used for a Public Limited Company, which is a quite different sort of thing, and will not be a lawyer or law firm. APC, A.P.C., PC, P.C., and Prof. Corp. all stand for &quot;Professional Corporation&quot; a form of organization which is similar to a PLLC. &quot;LLP&quot; means &quot;Limited Liability Partnership&quot; a variation on the classic partnership organization. &quot;SP&quot; means &quot;Sole Proprietorship&quot;, that is one lawyer working alone. None of these tell you anything about the kind of law a lawyer or firm does. None except SP tell you anything about how many lawyers a firm has. And none tell you anything about how competent a lawyer is. For the most part, none of these terms is of any importance to a client or would-be client of a lawyer or law firm. Reputation of the specific firm is far more important.
The main rules in a civil case are the rules of evidence, the rules of civil procedure, and a set of largely unwritten rules governing issues such as the order in which matters are presented in a trial and courtroom conduct. Basically, the rules of evidence are really a subset of a larger set of written and unwritten rules about courtroom conduct the unwritten parts of which are assumed to be known by people using them. Robert's Rules of Order do not apply to courtroom proceedings. The judge also has the "direct contempt" power to summarily punish disrespectful conduct in the courtroom without a trial, with fines or incarceration, even if it wouldn't be a crime outside the courtroom. But what if a party to the proceedings who does not "have the floor" wishes to do things like the following: Obtain a restatement (perhaps because it was unintelligible, or perhaps as a ploy for emphasis) of something uttered by another. If you are a party asking a question (or more likely an attorney for a party asking a question on behalf of a party) it is not improper to say, "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." It is also not generally improper for a non-questioning party to interject and state that they can't hear a witness to a judge. Obtain clarification of a statement. This can be done by a party only when it is the party's turn to cross-examine or redirect as the case may be. A judge can ask for clarification, but a party cannot do so when it is not their turn. Determine or clarify the purpose of an ongoing statement or line of questioning Generally the party not asking a question objects and the court asks the party asking the question to clarify the reason. Sometimes, in a jury trial, the party asked to clarify will say "may we approach the bench" and a private discussion will be held between counsel for both sides and the judge regarding an ongoing issue. Determine whether the judge will allow something later in the proceedings. (E.g., "At some point I hope to speak to point X. May I do that now? Or will I be afforded that opportunity at some later point before the conclusion of this hearing?") Lawyers are expected to know this for the most part without having to ask. Also, usually before the court starts to take evidence, and at breaks, the judge will ask "are there any preliminary matters that need to be addressed?" or "are there any procedural matters that need to be addressed?" and questions such as this can be raised at that time.
That book provides advice on legal writing; it is not a source of rules for legal writing. Rather than repeatedly identifying themselves using their full name, parties customarily refer to themselves in the third person, e.g., &quot;The defendant refused to waive his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.&quot; In practice, though, pro se litigants regularly refer to themselves in the first person, and there is no formal consequence for this.
A Lawyer may hire paralegals, clerks, secretaries, and other assistants. The lawyer may hire as many as s/he pleases, and assign them whatever tasks s/he chooses. However, some kinds of documents may need to be signed by the lawyer (which ones will depend on the jurisdiction, in the US on the state). During the so-called &quot;robo-signing scandal&quot; it was held that, in some US states at least, a lawyer who signs certain kinds of documents without reviewing them has failed to perform the duties imposed on the lawyer by the law, and the documents may be invalid. Large numbers of mortgage foreclosure cases were dismissed when it became known that the lawyer signing relevant documents had not in fact reviewed them (or in some cases had not even signed them, but had permitted a non-lawyer to sign the lawyer's name). In addition, some functions in some jurisdictions must be performed by an actual lawyer. For example, paralegals and other non-lawyers cannot validly give legal advice. Only a lawyer can represent a client in court. And so on. I question whether one lawyer could in most kinds of practice keep up with the work of &quot;hundreds&quot; of non-lawyers, but that would depend on the kind of work done by the firm. In the US, some law firms are essentially collection agencies. There a single lawyer with many many assistants suffices, I understand, and that structure is not uncommon in the US.