ABSTRACT

The solicitor can be characterised as a general practitioner: a lawyer who deals with clients direct, and when a particular specialism or litigation is required, will engage the services of counsel, that is, a barrister. Looking at the solicitor as a legal GP and the barrister as a specialist, however, can be misleading. Most solicitors, especially those in large practices, are experts in particular areas of law. They may restrict their regular work to litigation or commercial conveyancing or revenue work. Many barristers on the other hand might have a quite wide range of work including criminal, family matters and a variety of common law areas like tort and contract cases. The origins of the solicitor go back to the attornatus, or later the ‘attorney’, a medieval officer of the court whose main function was to assist the client in the initial stages of the case. One group of people practising in the Court of Chancery came to be known as ‘solicitors’. Originally, they performed a variety of miscellaneous clerical tasks for employers such as landowners and attorneys. Their name was derived from their function of ‘soliciting’ or prosecuting actions in courts of which they were not officers or attorneys. Eventually, neither of these groups was admitted to the Inns of Court (where barristers worked); they merged and organised themselves as a distinct profession.