A lawyer (lawyer, solicitor, attorney, a lawyer; a barrister (at law); a counsel; (Am.) an attorney (at law)) is different from the ancient litigators and solicitors. It refers to the law to obtain a lawyer's practicing certificate, accept the entrustment or designation, for the parties to provide legal services to the practitioners. According to the nature of work, lawyers can be divided into full-time lawyers and part-time lawyers, according to the scope of business, lawyers can be divided into civil lawyers, criminal lawyers and administrative lawyers, according to the object of service and work status, divided into social lawyers, corporate lawyers and public lawyers. Lawyer business is mainly divided into litigation business and non-litigation business. The basic characteristics of the lawyer's profession is: have the necessary legal expertise; to provide legal services as a function; by the state protection and management.
Article 28 of the current Lawyers Law, lawyers may engage in the following businesses:
(1) accepting the entrustment of natural persons, legal persons or other organizations to act as legal advisers;
(2) accepting the entrustment of parties to civil and administrative cases to act as agents to participate in litigation;
(3) accepting the entrustment of suspects and defendants in criminal cases or accepting the appointment of legal aid institutions in accordance with the law. entrusted or assigned by legal aid organizations in accordance with the law, to act as a defender, and to accept the entrustment of a private prosecutor in a private prosecution case, a victim in a public prosecution case, or his close relatives, to act as an agent and take part in the litigation;
(4) to accept entrustment to act as an agent for various types of complaints in litigation;
(5) to accept entrustment to take part in mediation and arbitration activities;
(6) to accept entrustment to Providing non-litigation legal services;
(vii) answering inquiries about the law, writing litigation documents and other documents related to legal affairs.
Scope of Practice
Article 25 of China's Lawyers Law clearly stipulates the content and scope of legal services provided by lawyers to the community:
(1) acting as a legal adviser;
(2) acting as an agent in litigation;
(3) acting as a criminal defense;
(4) acting as an agent in non-litigation, and participating in mediation and arbitration;
(5) acting as a legal adviser in litigation, and participating in mediation and arbitration. arbitration;
(v) answering legal counseling, writing legal documents, etc., in order to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties and the correct implementation of the law.