VII. Retell the text

Text 4. Solicitor or Barrister?

You can’t live without the people who are in legal profession. The legal profession becomes more numerously international. The solicitor is the first point of contact with the law for a person who needs the services of lawyer in the UK. The solicitor listens carefully to the client to make sure their needs are clearly understood and then explains the legal position and gives advice. By contrast, barristers will only see the client in the company of a briefing solicitor. The barrister is the specialist with particular abilities to do well in advocacy, a consultant who will examine the case and decide what line to take in court. There are only a few solicitors who have chances to present cases in the higher courts. Much more solicitors spend much of their time in an office making investigations, giving advice to clients and preparing documents for counsel. A barrister spends much time either in a courtroom or preparing his arguments for the court. Barristers are self-employed in the independent Bar. Solicitors are normally salaried and may be offered a share in the profits of the practice if they turn out successfully. There is a healthy contest between solicitors and barristers.

The Bar is a small but influential independent body with just over 8,000 practicing barristers in over 400 chambers in England and Wales. In addition, there are about 2,000 barristers employed as in-house lawyers. The Bar is an advocacy profession. The work divides equally between civil and criminal law.

But many people believe the distinction between barristers and solicitors should be eliminated in England, as has already happened in Australia. The government is considering various proposals, but there are for keeping in existence, as well as removing, the division.

Neither kind of lawyer needs a university qualification. The vast majority of barristers and most solicitors do in fact go to university, but they do not necessarily study law there. This arrangement is typically British.