Advocate
Advocate ( Latin advocatus , 'the summoned') is a term for a lawyer that is out of date in Austria and Germany today, is only used in educational or colloquial language or with derogatory meaning ( angle advocate ) in the Swiss legal area (especially in the cantons Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft ) but has the same meaning as lawyer . In a figurative sense, it also means an advocate for a thing.
term
The word advocatus is the past participle of the Latin verb advocare ('bring about' or 'to call out') and can therefore be translated as “the person called”.
history
Historically, this is a job title that primarily served to distinguish it from the procurator : With the reception of Roman law from the High Middle Ages in Europe, court proceedings were professionalized and functions were created that were filled with trained lawyers . Here, a profession of professional lawyers developed who represented one party in the trial before the court, the so-called procurators . In addition, there were other lawyers who maintained contact with the person seeking legal advice, advised clients and also provided legal support in extrajudicial transactions, the lawyers . In some countries, however, the separation between lawyers and procurators only existed before the highest courts, in Germany for example before the Reichshofrat or the Reichskammergericht . Since the end of the 16th century, this dichotomy in the legal profession in continental Europe has been loosened more and more and largely eliminated with the legal reforms of the Napoleonic era.
The two-part system still exists today in Spain , where the traditional terms “advocate” (abogado) and “procurator” (procurador) continue, in Poland ( adwokat and radca prawny ), as well as in the legal systems shaped by the legal tradition of common law in England , Wales and other Commonwealth countries , where the lawyers are called " solicitors " and the procurators are called " barristers ". In France , until 2011 there was a distinction between avoué ('advocate') and avocat (literally 'advocate', but corresponded to the procurator).
See also
literature
- Gerhard Buchda / Albrecht Cordes : Lawyer . In: Concise Dictionary of German Legal History , Vol. 1, 2nd edition, Erich Schmidt Verlag Berlin 2008, Sp. 255–263 ISBN 978-3-503-07912-4
- Wilhelm Kubitschek : Advocatus . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 436-438.
