COUNSELLOR

An advocate or barrister. A member of the legal profession whose special function is to give counsel or advice as to the legal aspects of judicial controversies, or their preparation and management and to appear in court for the conduct of trials, or the argument of causes, or presentation of motions, or any other legal business that takes him into the presence of the court In some of the states, the two words “counsellor” and “attorney” are used interchangeably to designate all lawyers. In others, the latter term alone is used, “counsellor” not being recognized as a technical name. In still others, the two are associated together as the full legal title of any person who has been admitted to practice in the courts; while in a few they denote different grades, it being prescribed that no one can become a counsellor until he has been an attorney for a specified time and has passed a second examination. In the practice of the United States supreme court, the term denotes an officer who is employed by a party in a cause to conduct the same on its trial on his behalf. He differs from an attorney at law. In the supreme court of the United States, the two degrees of attorney and counsel were at first kept separate, and no person was permitted to practice in both capacities, but the present practice is otherwise. Weeks, Attys. at Law. 54. It is the duty of the counsel to draft or review and correct the special pleadings, to manage the cause on trial, and, during the whole course of the suit, to apply established principles of law to the exigencies of the case. 1 Kent, Comm. 807.