Roles In the United States, attorneys provide a wide variety of services. They seem to do everything from drafting contracts and writing up wills to trying high-profile cases and arguing in front of the Supreme Court. In fact, at times it can seem like the U.S. is obsessed with attorneys as more and more things become legal issues and attorneys find themselves taking on more and more roles. Our pop culture seems to both reflect and drive our legal obsession as well, with more and more legal dramas and other shows and movies with attorneys as main characters being produced. In this paper, I will examine two of the main roles attorneys play in the modern U.S. legal system and I will offer examples of television shows and movies that portray
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According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, one definition of advocate is “a person who argues for the cause of another person in a court of law.” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) With that being the definition, acting as an advocate and arguing on behalf of their clients is an essential role that attorneys play. This seems to be especially true since the U.S. legal system is setup to be adversarial. In Law in our Lives: An Introduction, David Friedrichs states, “the courts in the [U.S.] criminal justice system are formally organized to operate according to an adversary model, with a “contest” between the prosecution and the defense.” (Friedrichs, 2012) The U.S. also seems to have an adversarial model when it comes to civil law issues. Friedrichs writes that civil law, which is the term the U.S. uses for its system of private law, handles issues when one party complains to have been wronged by another party. Here, again, the U.S. system seems to pit people against each other in an adversarial way. Perhaps the most obvious indicator of the adversarial model in the U.S. is the fact that all legal cases are written as either U.S. or state v. offender in criminal cases or party v. party in civil cases. Even the way we identify our legal cases suggests the parties involved are versing each other. With this being the working model in the United States, one of the main roles attorneys fulfill will always seemingly be one of an advocate for their
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, one definition of advocate is “a person who argues for the cause of another person in a court of law.” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) With that being the definition, acting as an advocate and arguing on behalf of their clients is an essential role that attorneys play. This seems to be especially true since the U.S. legal system is setup to be adversarial. In Law in our Lives: An Introduction, David Friedrichs states, “the courts in the [U.S.] criminal justice system are formally organized to operate according to an adversary model, with a “contest” between the prosecution and the defense.” (Friedrichs, 2012) The U.S. also seems to have an adversarial model when it comes to civil law issues. Friedrichs writes that civil law, which is the term the U.S. uses for its system of private law, handles issues when one party complains to have been wronged by another party. Here, again, the U.S. system seems to pit people against each other in an adversarial way. Perhaps the most obvious indicator of the adversarial model in the U.S. is the fact that all legal cases are written as either U.S. or state v. offender in criminal cases or party v. party in civil cases. Even the way we identify our legal cases suggests the parties involved are versing each other. With this being the working model in the United States, one of the main roles attorneys fulfill will always seemingly be one of an advocate for their