What's in a name?

"Dear Attorney Barr" began the reminder from the American Trial Lawyer's Association. They probably thought nothing of it. But it was enough to lift me from my laurels and initiate the complicated process of paying a professional subscription in dollars.

I don't like being a solicitor. More accurately, I don't really mind being a solicitor. No one could accuse me of doing it for the money. Besides, once you have been a solicitor for a while you are not much good to be anything else. It's really the name that I object to.

In America - if LA Law is to be believed - they call each other "Attorney" and "Counsellor" the whole time.

But in this country we solicitors have no title to speak of. We are not "Doctor" or even the assertive "Mister" of surgeons. Unless we have served in the forces we cannot embellish our nomenclature. A local solicitor used to parade himself in the local Magistrates court as Colonel Bollard. On one memorable occasion he telephoned a local legal executive (perhaps he was a Managing Clerk then).

"Colonel Bollard here" came the imperious voice.

"Bombardier Bambridge at your service - Sir" was the reply.

Other professions actually combine their titles. A Surgeon Commander must be a busy man - steering the ship with one hand and removing the appendix with the other. And imagine how the Squadron Leader copes when he is setting a broken leg.

There is something basically unsatisfactory about the word solicitor. Too many sibilants conjure up images of snakes or slime.

In the USA they don't like solicitors at all. You can buy signs at hardware stores which say "No Solicitors". If you admit to the average American that you are indeed a solicitor they will either back away from you or encourage you to become a barrister.

So how did it all start? Apparently the expression "solicitor" first came into being towards the end of the sixteenth century. There were two types of lawyers practising in the High Courts - attorneys and barristers. In the eighteenth century, attorneys were prevented from joining the Inns of Court. The attorneys in retaliation formed the Society of Gentlemen Practisers in the Courts of Law and Equity. Included in the membership of the Society was a growing group of lawyers called solicitors. Solicitors were employed to solicit favourable decisions on behalf of litigants bogged down in the court process. The name "attorney" had acquired unpleasant connotations and went out of usage in England, in favour of the 'gentler' term: solicitor. The only relic of that is the Attorney General - the Government's Chief law officer. Ironically there is another high ranking member of the Government: the solicitor general, who always happens to be a barrister.

Is there anything we can do about it? Can solicitors ever be cuddled and loved while they have such an odd name? Our new breed of Solicitor Advocates (second tier - crown court) have given themselves a little scope for image enhancement.

But what of those of us who choose not to wear wigs and not to be bullied by haughty High Court Judges? Incidentally that is a point. Why do solicitors, having been granted rights of audience in the High Court, feel the .urge to pretend to look like barristers? Is it for fear that they might be recognised by judges? Do they secretly want to become barristers?

If I decided to try to become a solicitor-advocate (Relax your Lordships I am only speculating), the last thing I would want to do is dress up in odd clothes to appear in court. Solicitor-advocates need a different image. Wigs and gowns are the costume of the seventeenth century. Baseball caps and sweatshirts imprinted with "I am a solicitor-advocate, I am" must be the order of the day for this new breed. Then in 200 years, tourists will wander into the courts and gasp: "How quaint".

But my concern is for those of us left behind, sitting at our desks, mouthing into our dictating machines? What are we to become?. Solictor bureaucrats is too close to the knuckle. How about the slightly Hitlerian "Solicitor-Dictators"?

The truth is, which ever way you look at it, the word does not appeal. Even backwards - Roticilos - the slightly Iberian feel to the end of the word is offset by the unfavourable first three letters.

The name has to change. Just as Sellafield did wonders with its image when it changed from Windscale, so we need to slough our previous skins and start afresh.

I know that one or two people with exceedingly long memories will harbour the occasional grudge against attorneys from a few hundred years ago, but I am prepared to risk it. I would be quite happy to keep the name of Attorney Barr so kindly bestowed on me by ATLA. It would also give us the opportunity to add our own tags: Attorney Advocates (or AA's for short), Attorney Conveyancers (AC's) and of course those doing a wide range of work would simply become Attorney Generals.

We would also have wonderful new marketing opportunities. The public could cringe from the new slogans: "More Power to my Attorney", "I © my attorney", "Make the journey to your attorney". I can almost see the best seller list - featuring The exciting exploits of Ernie the Attorney.

But suddenly I have this irrepressible feeling of nausea. After all, perhaps there is hidden inspiration in the simple and safe exhortation: "See a solicitor". Heaven forbid, if we start becoming attorneys, we might have to accept some of the other trappings which go with that title, like earning a living wage or wearing white shoes, or operating a legal system which gives victims a fair crack of the whip.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in June 1994