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?

definitely the solicitor info contradicts that given under barrister

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)).

contradicts barrister information

barrister says they are in court and solicitors hire barristers

this says solicitors are in court

which is it

if both , definitely needs explanation

It's both. Traditionally, solicitors did not have the right to appear in the higher courts and they would "brief" a barrister to present a case there. It's rather like the distinction between a medical general practitioner and aspecialist surgeon - the first deals with minor ailments beut sends patients to the second for specialist treatment. Barristers rarely appear in magistrates' courts, the cases tend to be simple and do not require specialist knowedge. In recent years, solicitors have been given the right to be heard in certain circumstances in higher courts, but this is not common. I think the explanation given in this article is perfectly clear in this regard. Emeraude (talk) 08:45, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

costs-article question

It would be good if anyone can review the Costs article changes shown in this webpage. Thank you in advance. Bo99 (talk) 23:47, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by User:Legal8462

This user is an SPA with a Mission. The Mission is to convince the world that:

"solicitor" = 司法書士 (shihō shoshi)

As I understand it (if any of the following paragraph is simply wrong, or can be better worded, please edit it directly): In the English and some other legal systems, most of the business of legal representation is two-layered: a solicitor deals directly with the client (and also does a lot of humdrum business such as conveyancing, which does not involve the courts), whereas a barrister represents the solicitor's client in court. I believe that this solicitor-barrister dichotomy is entirely absent in other legal systems, such as that of the USA, despite being historically the same system. And also, I believe that in Japan this dichotomy is entirely absent, in that a member of the public goes to a bengoshi ("lawyer"), who both deals with the humdrum bits, and also does the representation in court.

But what of "shihō shoshi"? Well, this is another variety of Japanese legal profession, and basically these people do only (more-or-less) humdrum work, like conveyancing, as you can read in the (not particularly good) article Judicial scrivener (particularly if you go back to a version not in broken English). This name "judicial scrivener" is a rather archaic, direct translation of the Japanese term, but one "hallowed by tradition," appearing in J-E dictionaries from long ago (oldest I have is Kenkyusha's fourth ed., 1978) to current "dictionary" websites such as Goo.

However, the term "solicitor" is certainly used sometimes to refer to these people, because no doubt of its greater recognisability; this seems fine as an approximation, and is why shihō shoshi is mentioned in this (the "Solicitor") article. But this needs a nuanced presentation, and in particular, in this article I do not believe Japan belongs in the list of countries having the English solicitor-barrister split, because it simply doesn't.

But nuanced presentation is plainly beyond the editor User:Legal8462, whose grasp of English is plainly insufficient to contribute directly to editing WP:en. The closest to an argument this user has presented is, roughly: "The shihō shoshi association has registered 'Solicitor' as a trademark, and therefore this must be used as the name in English".

It does appear to be true that 日本司法書士会連合会 (self-styled Japan Federation of Shiho-shoshi’s Associations) have registered "Solicitor / ソリシター" (the Roman and katakana forms) as a trade mark: here is the J Govt site showing this: Trademark registration. But in itself, this is a pretty bizarre idea: if "solicitor" is supposed to be the generic term for a shihō shoshi, there is no need to trademark it. The effect would appear to be that an English solicitor wishing to offer advice on English legal matters in Tokyo would have to deny being a solicitor...?

Such oddities do occur, of course: in Japan "Cider" is a registered trademark for various fizzy "lemon" drinks, and in the course of trade in Japan, a producer of Somerset cider is not allowed to call their product "Cider" (or the katakana saidaa (サイダー)) but must call it ringo-shu (りんご酒) or cidre (シードル, shiidoru), the French name. But none of this affects the English for "cider", which is "cider". Similarly, it doesn't matter what trademarks the Shiho-shoshi association registers, but the very definition of trademark, this does not affect the generic expression used in any language.

Anyway, in place of a reasoned description of possible renderings for shihō shoshi the editor named above has been trying to change everything to a new world, where "solicitor" = 司法書士, and that's that. This includes vandalising Wikidata, including for example even the removal of the French label for "judicial scrivener". The user has also been repeatedly blocked on WP:ja for exactly the same reason.

Imaginatorium (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that "Shihō-shoshi (司法書士) ... are often described as Japanese solicitors"; it is just not so often. Apparently, Japan Federation of Shiho-shoshi's Associations is hoping that their profession is considered something comparable to that of solicitors, but they are only making remote allusion by rather isolated mention of "Shiho-Shoshi (Solicitor)", which is not supported by any further explanation. Japan's Ministry of Justice continues to call them "judicial scriveners" (see p.29 of 2016 MOJ brochure, and I cannot find any independent third-party source to support the view that Japanese Shiho-Shoshi = solicitors. I also doubt that the trademark[1], registered for businesses unrelated to legal services, is relevant here. Wikipedians are not supposed to use primary or non-independent, non-third-party sources to promote their own views. I believe that the "Japan" section should be deleted altogether unless reliable independent third-party sources are found to support the information there.--Dwy (talk) 01:29, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

edit has been deleted

Harvthesmarv (talk) 12:47, 20 November 2017 (UTC) i recently completed an edit for this page and it has been removed and i am not sure why the reference was for work experience in the legal industry - 5 years plus ago we developed a system that allows students to complete a work experience application online that is distributed to the law firms either in their area or as specified by the student, the system is completely free to use and does not cary and adverts, the system we developed in response to students contacting us asking for help. my understanding is that their is no other system in the UK that does this for students. please can you reconsider its inclusion as i feel its a valuable free resource for students.Harvthesmarv (talk) 12:47, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

@Harvthesmarv: It did not conform to WP:RS and can easily be construed as WP:REFSPAM, especially since it now transpires, the reference was to your own' website. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not intended to draw attention to this, that or the other. Please take that into consideration when editing. Thanks. Kleuske (talk) 12:51, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

but its not spam its a free service provided for students, i am the one that helps out any students if they need it, the company gains no benefit from it what so ever, the section on wiki covers how to qualify as a solicitor, work experience is one aspect of this process, the system we have was designed for the students convenience and its the only one in the uk, but its not spam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harvthesmarv (talk • contribs) 13:01, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of whether it was spam or not, adding a link to website of which you are affiliated to means that you are editing with a conflict of interest. If you have a conflict of interest with something you should generally avoid editing that area or making any edits related to your conflict of interest (this case for example). Thanks, ^{My name is}not^dave (talk/contribs) 13:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

i did not realise if i worked for someone i could not mention a service that company provides my apologies - but i still think its an excellent free resource for students and justifies mention - the service is not for any for of commercial gain and is used a lot by students, so under what circumstances could it be included? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harvthesmarv (talk • contribs) 13:13, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

It was me who deleted it. It may well be an excellent resource (and as someone who used to organise work experience placements for students I can appreciate its value) but its inclusion is questionable for the reason I gave when editing and as explained above. There was already an authorative independent source given and that is sufficient. Emeraude (talk) 13:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

hi their is a big difference between training contracts and work experience they do two completely different things, i can see that their is not a independent source that can guide or help students that need this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harvthesmarv (talk • contribs) 13:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

So... What on Earth is a solicitor?

Being myself a jurist – who is not that much used to Common Law terminology and the legal structures of said system; and for whom English just as a secong language –, I must say that this article doesn't provide a meaningful explanation on what a "solicitor" actually is, for definitions such as "[a] legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions" and "have legally-defined qualifications" are not really different than having provided no definitions at all. Moreover, this article barely attempts to differentiate solicitors from other legal professions, which only makes things worse, given that "solicitor" and "barrister" may be different professions in some jurisdictions, while being the same profession in others.

Come on, guys... You can do better than this.

is there a solicitor should arguments in courtroom

is this possible 115.98.233.66 (talk) 06:04, 17 November 2023 (UTC)