Lawyer is a word that is used to describe a professional who is a specialist at law and who will represent you regarding legal matters. It is usually used loosely to describe both solicitors and barristers. Solicitors and barristers Solicitors are concerned mainly with the paperwork involved in legal matters, such as contracts, agreements, trusts, wills, conveyancing, court documentation etc. Barristers, however, specialise in appearing before the court on your behalf.
Barristers deal mainly in court work and therefore spend most of their time in the courts.
If you wish to consult a barrister on a legal matter, you usually have to work through a solicitor who will make the introduction, similar to a general practitioner introducing a patient to a heart specialist. That is, a solicitor will brief the barrister on the situation and on the details of the particular case in hand. Solicitors usually work from offices, which are mainly in the city, or in the larger suburbs, while barristers spend most of their time in the courts and work out of chambers, which are usually offices that are shared with other court specialists. If you have a legal problem, the first person that you will talk to is a solicitor and, while a solicitor can appear in court to represent you on some matters, for the more complex litigation work the solicitor will brief the barrister, who will take the matter to the court on your behalf. If you wish to consult a solicitor, it is a simple matter of making a telephone call, either by reference to the telephone book or by referral from an associate or friend.