Definition
An attorney at large was, in old English practice, an attorney authorized to practice across all courts of the realm, as distinguished from attorneys admitted to a single court or limited jurisdiction. The term denotes breadth of practice authorization rather than any particular specialty or function. It is an archaic designation with no direct modern equivalent; today, bar admission in a jurisdiction generally confers the right to appear in all courts of that jurisdiction without requiring the specific label.
Common Confusion
The phrase "at large" carries distinct meanings depending on context. In modern legal usage, "at large" most commonly means unrestrained or uncaptured (as in a fugitive at large) or elected from a general constituency rather than a district (as in an at-large election). Neither of those meanings applies here. The phrase in this term is a term of art from old English court practice meaning, roughly, without restriction — across all courts. Researchers encountering this phrase in historical sources should not import the modern senses of "at large" into its interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a historical artifact. Researchers will encounter it in older English practice manuals, court records, and treatises from the period when English courts were organized into distinct jurisdictions — King's Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery, Exchequer — each with its own bar and admission requirements. An attorney admitted to one court was not automatically admitted to others; the designation "at large" signaled the broader authorization.
The primary trap for researchers is assuming this term has continuing operational significance. It does not appear in modern rules of court or bar admission standards. If it surfaces in an American legal document, it is almost certainly either a direct quotation or adaptation from English sources, or an artifact of early colonial or post-colonial practice that had not yet shed English terminology.
A secondary research trap: the term's superficial resemblance to modern phrases like "attorney-in-fact" or "general power of attorney" may tempt researchers to conflate them. These are unrelated concepts. Attorney at large speaks to court admission; attorney-in-fact speaks to agency authority.
Burrill cites Cowell's Interpreter as the source, and Black's follows suit. Researchers seeking the original locus should consult John Cowell's The Interpreter (1607), the English legal glossary from which both dictionaries drew this entry. That lineage means the definition has remained essentially unchanged across centuries of legal dictionary publication — it was copied forward without modernization because the term itself ceased to have living application.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement on this term, to the point of near-identical language. Both define it as an old practice term for an attorney who practiced in all the courts, and both cite Cowell as authority. There is no divergence, no evolution of meaning between the two, and no indication that either dictionary attempted to update or expand the definition beyond its original source. This uniformity reflects the term's status as a historical relic: the dictionaries preserved it for completeness and for the benefit of researchers reading older materials, not because it described a living concept at the time of their compilation.
Neither dictionary addresses the term's American usage or its disappearance from practice. The omission is understandable — by the time American legal dictionaries consolidated their definitions, the term had already effectively passed out of active use.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia: Durable Powers of Attorney — Uniform Power of Attorney Act and State Variations (estates_148) [relevant for distinguishing attorney-in-fact concepts from this historical court-practice term]