Practice of Law

A Practice of Law is a professional task that is a legal task of legal decision-making.

• Context:
  • It can (typically) be performed by a Certified Legal Practitioners.
  • It can (often) involve providing legal advice to law clients, drafting legal documents, and representing clients in legal negotiations, and court proceedings.
  • It can (often) be governed by rules of professional conduct and ethics established by bar associations.
  • It can require specialized skills in legal analysis, legal writing, oral advocacy, and knowledge of the law.
  • It can range from being an Authorized Practice of Law to being an Unauthorized Practice of Law.
  • It can overlap with other professional services like accounting, real estate, and financial advising that also involve legal tasks.
  • It can be supported by Practice of Law Automation, such as: automated document drafting and digital legal research.
  • It can (typically) restricted to licensed professionals, but emerging roles like legal document assistants can perform some legal services.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Contract Drafting.
  • Litigation.
  • Regulatory Compliance.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Practice of Accounting.
• See: Regulatory Compliance, Legal Practice, Access to Justice.

---

---

References

2023

• (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_of_law Retrieved:2023-5-3.
  • In its most general sense, the practice of law involves giving legal advice to clients, drafting legal documents for clients, and representing clients in legal negotiations and court proceedings such as lawsuits, and is applied to the professional services of a lawyer or attorney at law, barrister, solicitor, or civil law notary. However, there is a substantial amount of overlap between the practice of law and various other professions where clients are represented by agents. These professions include real estate, banking, accounting, and insurance. Moreover, a growing number of legal document assistants (LDAs) are offering services which have traditionally been offered only by lawyers and their employee paralegals. Many documents may now be created by computer-assisted drafting libraries, where the clients are asked a series of questions that are posed by the software in order to construct the legal documents. In addition, regulatory consulting firms also provide advisory services on regulatory compliance that were traditionally provided exclusively by law firms.

2017

The practice of law as an obstacle to justice: Chinese lawyers at work E Michelson - Law and Society in East Asia, 2017 - taylorfrancis.com … or close the gates of the legal system" (Jacob 1995:118, cited in Martin & Daniels 1997 :26; also see Kritzer 1997), this article scrutinizes the role of lawyers and law firms in these access…

2018

• (Alarie et al., 2018) - Alarie, B., Niblett, A., & Yoon, A. H. (2018). How artificial intelligence will affect the practice of law. University of Toronto Law Journal, 68(Supplement 1), 106-124.
  • QUOTE: "This article investigates likely advances and the impact of data-driven analysis. This article ... practice of law. We look to how natural language processing and machine learning can assist lawyers and perform some of ..."
  • NOTE: Discusses how AI and data analytics are impacting the practice of law and augmenting the work of lawyers.

2009

• (Wikipedia, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_of_law
  • In its most general sense, the practice of law involves giving legal advice to clients, drafting legal documents for clients, and representing clients in legal negotiations and court proceedings such as lawsuits, and is applied to the professional services of a lawyer or attorney at law, barrister, solicitor, or civil law notary. ...

1982

Building power and breaking images: Critical legal theory and the practice of law P Gabel, P Harris - NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change, 1982 - HeinOnline … law practice that is based on a view of the … law is simply a "tool of the ruling class"1 and the liberal-legalist view that power- * Professor of Law, New College of California School of Law, …

1966

• (Blumberg, 1966) - Blumberg, A. S. (1966). The practice of law as confidence game-organizational cooptation of a profession. Law & Soc'y Rev., 1(2), 15.
  • QUOTE: "...and law has been the great need for a joint effort of the two ... somewhat critical of sociologists of law because of what they ... application of theory and methodology to the examination of ..."
  • NOTE: Provides a sociological analysis of the legal profession and how it maintains occupational control over the practice of law.

---