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In turn, before taking the bar exam, nearly all American lawyers must first attend law school for at least three years.
The degree awarded by U.S. law schools to graduates is the degree of Juris Doctor or J.D. (occasionally mis-Anglicized to Juris Doctorate). In contrast, other common law legal systems still use the degree of Bachelor or Laws, or LL.B. Some universites, for instance Oxford, offer B.A degrees instead of the LL.B.
A key distinction between the U.S. and U.K. systems is that in the U.S., the J.D. degree is usually undertaken by graduates whereas in the UK, the LL.B (or the equivalent B.A.) is a primary, undergraduate, degree.
Graduate law degrees may also be obtained. A Master of Laws, or LL.M., is awarded after completion of a specialized program of study - often in esoteric subjects such as taxation or trial advocacy.
The ultimate law degree obtainable in the U.S. is the S.J.D., or Scientum Juris Doctor, literally "doctor of juridical science". This should not be confused with the "doctor of laws" degree, or LL.D., which is usually, but not always, awarded for honorary purposes. Usually, only law professors bother to earn an S.J.D., since it entails an additional three years on top of one for an LL.M and three for a J.D.
The LL.M and S.J.D. are not mandatory prerequisites for lawyers who wish to become law professors. Although such advanced degrees do help with regard to seeking employment at the most prestigious law schools, the majority of law professors hold only the J.D. degree.
All jurisdictions have a bar association, being an organization of which members of the bar in that jurisdiction are members. Traditionally, the bar association issues a magazine or journal, forms committees to deal with issues relating to the bar such as fee disputes, rules, and the like, and promotes the greater good of the profession.
Many jurisdictions, particularly in the West, have so-called an integrated bar, meaning that the state's Bar Association is the body which licenses, regulates, and disciplines lawyers, and membership therein is mandatory.
In other jurisdictions, membership in the state Bar Association is voluntary, and the Bar Association has no official power, except those which may be conferred upon it by the state's highest court.
In some jurisdictions, there also exist county or local bar associations, which normally deal with the same issues, except on a more localized basis.
In all cases, however, the ultimate authority to establish the qualifications and standards for admission of lawyers rests with the jurisdiction's highest court.
Unlike most other nations, the American legal system does not draw a strong line between solicitors and barristers, nor does it relegate most routine work to notary publics.
Once accepted by the bar association of a state, an American lawyer may file legal pleadings and argue cases in any court in that state (either federal or state), provide legal advice to clients, and draft important legal documents (like wills, trusts, deeds, and contracts). American lawyers use the term lawyering to refer to the art of practicing law.
In some states, real estate closings may only be performed by lawyers, even though the lawyer's role in a closing mostly involves notarization of documents and disbursement of settlement funds through an escrow account.
Contrary to the media image of lawyers, virtually all serious legal work requires hours of in-depth research in a law library or in an appropriate electronic legal database like Westlaw or LexisNexis. Very few television programs and movies accurately portray the long nights surrounded by a pile of books or printouts which form the core of the average American lawyer's occupational life.
In litigation, lawyers also spend a lot of time discovering the facts of the case, in order to develop a "theory of the case" that integrates facts and law in a way most favorable to their client. Sadly, too often the discovery phase of a case turns into an unpleasant war over petty technicalities. Most lawyers would agree that approximately 50 to 70% of all funds spent on legal services in the U.S. go towards discovery costs.
Most American lawyers are highly specialized in one field or another. Often dichotomies are drawn between different types of lawyers, but these are neither fixed nor formal lines. Examples include:
About half of American attorneys work as solos or in small firms. See law firm. There are also many midsize firms, with anywhere from 50 to 200 lawyers, and since the 1970s, some law firms have merged to form giant "megafirms" with 1,000 lawyers or more.
Unlike other common law jurisdictions, there is nothing to prevent an American lawyer from controlling and arguing his case at each level of the judiciary through its entire lifecycle. However, cases which advance to the appellate level, particularly to the U.S. Supreme Court, are often assigned to experienced appellate practitioners or firms. Nonetheless, in some cases, a lawyer may handle his or her case from the trial level all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A notable example of this is the Brown v. Board of Education litigation, where the same trial team handled the case from start to finish.
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