Counsel

From Freepedia

A counsel or a counsellor gives advice, more particularly in legal matters.

The legal system in England uses the term counsel as a synonym for a barrister-at-law, and may apply it to mean either a single person who pleads a cause, or collectively, the body of barristers engaged in a case.

The legal term counsellor, or, more fully, counsellor-at-law, became practically obsolete in England, but continued in use locally in Ireland as an equivalent to barrister, where a Senior Counsel (S.C.) is equivalent to the English QC or KC.

In the United States of America, the term counsellor-at-law designates, specifically, an attorney admitted to practice in all courts of law; but as the United States legal system makes no formal division of the legal profession into two classes, as in England, most US citizens use the term loosely in the same sense as lawyer, meaning one who versed in (or practising) law.

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.