Talk:Solicitor

Law of England and Wales?

Is the Law of England and Wales box appropriate given most of the article is in fact concerned with solicitors outside that jurisdiction?Thehappyhobo (talk) 15:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Supreme court

The reference to the supreme court in this article (second paragraph) is confusing. Could someone please clarify? --Doric Loon 22:16, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be an explanation on the Chancery page, but I'm not familiar enough with British law to be bold. siafu 22:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I have added a link from Supreme to the Courts of England and Wales. Hopefully this clarify the situation a little more. Davidkinnen 15:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't sure that the start of this article was correct:- Solicitors may conduct litgation in the lower courts of England and Wales. In other words they may appear in the County Court but not in the High Court or any court above that. Accordingly they may also appear - and often do - in the Magistrates Courts. [Richard Reade] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.115.52.180 (talk) 19:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Request for Expansion

Could people add information about Solicitors in other jurisdictions - such as Northern Ireland and expand on the Scottish information. Davidkinnen 15:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

 I have done a quick edit for Republic of Ireland. DanielGoldsmith

Is it really true that solicitors in NSW and Queensland have limited rights of audience?Fat Red 08:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the section "Personal Injuries" which was of limited or no relevance to the rest of the article.Fat Red 08:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Canada

Is the term "solicitor" used in Canada, and is there a division between solicitors and barristers? Walton monarchist89 11:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)#

No there isnt, this should be changed

History of Solicitor-Barrister split

Does anyone know the history of how this legal divide between solicitor and barrister came about, as it would seem to me that the more natural thing is to have one legal expert dealing with all legal issues, as I thought was the case in more ancient times? My father is a solicitor in Ireland and does not know of any time when this was the case in England (Ireland having just based their legal system on the English one).

I wonder whether there ever was a unified legal profession. Remember that all the professions (including teaching, public administration, medicine and the law) were practiced by clerics, after the early church closed down secular education. The clergy, after all, form the paradigm of a hierachical system. Perhaps there was a period when only notaries (licenced by the Pope, rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury) practiced law in England, but they seem not to have appeared in court. Before the Victorian unification of the junior branch, attorneys covered common law and were distinct from the solicitors involved with the equity courts and the procurators (proctors) of the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts. The barristers were instructed by the attorneys and solicitors, whereas the advocates of Doctors' Commons were instructed by the proctors until both these latter groups lost their monopoly. There were also "special pleaders" who limited their activities more narrowly. Above the barristers were the serjeants at law, who became extinct after the "Order of the Coif" ceased to be a necessary stepping stone to the bench. Above these were the King's or Queen's Serjeants, a much smaller class than that of King's or Queen's Counsel. As there was a multiplicity of ecclesiastical courts, from centuries before the secular courts had become differentiated to the extent of Victorian times, it is likely that the lawyers of England have been more or less specialised from an early period.NRPanikker 23:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Etymology

What is the origin of the word? What exactly to solicitors solicit? Please enlighten.--Ekilfeather 18:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Soliciting for prostitution

I have just noticed that on 27 November 2006 a user 80.41.188.0 deleted the comments I had made in the article earlier about other uses of the term 'solicit' in the UK, i.e. the criminal offence of "soliciting for prostitution". There is not indication of why this was removed, so I am replacing it. Emeraude 14:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you refering to the picture of the roadsign saying "No Soliciting"? I was just about to comment on that, does anybody know which jurisdiction this sign is from? It is humourous but probably irrelevent here ...Unless Streets and Highways Code section, 225.5 prohibits soliciting for the purposes of unnessesary peronal injury claims tehe. (Also from UK here). Bamkin 18:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I wasn't. If you click on the picture you will see that it comes from the USA. I'm not sure it's relevant in this article. Emeraude 09:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I took that picture and I added it here because I thought it was relevant to show that soliciting (in the sense of soliciting money for commercial goods or services) is generally disfavored in the United States. But in retrospect I agree that it is a bit of a tangent and the other picture already illustrates the U.S. definition well enough. So essentially I'm indifferent if you want to keep it or get rid of it in this article (since it's also displayed in the Rest area article, which I originally took it for).--Coolcaesar 05:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What the hell just happened?

I just countermanded a massive deletion of over 1k of the article text. Regardless of what User:Nja247 thinks, the U.S. usage of solicitor is relevant and was sourced (I personally added those citations). The point of that section is to explain why Americans have signs everywhere saying "no solicitors." It's not because Americans don't like lawyers (although that's also a big issue in the U.S.), it's because we use that term for what the British call touts. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It was removed because it does not belong in the article, and most likely not even on Wikipedia. WP:NOT and WP:MOS should help clarify what belong and what does not, particularly Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Distinguish and disambiguation tags at the top of the article are to sort out these issues, not out of place sections in the article. Also the section is off-topic, generally unreferenced, contains a repository of definitions (something which Wikipedia is not) and importantly is original research. This will need to be sorted in due course. Further the images in the section are unnecessary and stray from the main topic as well and should be considered another issue which needs addressed. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 08:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The section was on-topic because it explains that a solicitor is not a lawyer in the United States. And it was supported by references to various local ordinances banning solicitors in the American sense. I wonder if you're personally offended by all our "no solicitors" signs? Almost every business here has a sign saying "no solicitors" or "no soliciting." --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

This article is not about the what the term means in the United States, rather about the profession of Solicitor. As noted above the pictures and references appeared to be original research and not independent and reliable third parties sources to satisfy Wikipedia inclusion guidelines. Disambiguation tags could be used, though I think they're unneeded as the entire time this seciton has been removed (well over two months) not one comment on this talk page has arisen by someone being confused about the term of solicitor in the USA. Overall, Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary and original research does not satisfy inclusion policy. Nja²⁴⁷ 09:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Lede

The lede explains that there is a difference between "Solicitor" and "Barrister". It does NOT explain well / at all what a solicitor is. Please can somebody who's knowledgable on this write a summary for the lede, so that it starts as it is supposed to?

Judicial scrivener

Judicial scrivener is japanese solicitor. It must be merged to solicitor. -- WonRyong (talk) 14:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The only people who claim that are Judicial Scriveners. Curious, no? Steven McIntire ALLEN 01:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Limited numbers?

It has ben suggested to me that the two British organisations that qualify solicitors deliberately limit the numbers of solicitors to ensure a lack of competitive practice and hence keep solicitor's fees high. If this is true, it would be useful to add details of this practice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.149.60 (talk) 20:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Just to say that this is not true. The SRA / Law Society of Scotland have no say in the number of lawyers that are trained in the UK, this is determined by (first) the number of university positions on the LPC / DLP and (second) by the number of training contracts offered by law firms. Once a trainee solicitor completes his or her traineeship at a law firm the process to become "qualified" is only a formal one - the regulatory authorities have very little scope to reject someone and it would be very rare for a trainee solicitor who has completed the traineeship not to be given the title "Solicitor" by the SRA / Law Society of Scotland (especially as there is no equivalent of the bar exam to become a solicitor). Indeed, in England and Wales the number of lawyers has increased by 40% over the last 10 years while the total population has only grown 10%. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/apr/04/solicitors-number-england-wales-ethnicity (Connolly15 (talk) 12:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)).