Definition
In Scots law, an agent or attorney acting on behalf of another — essentially a factor or representative empowered to manage affairs, conduct transactions, or take legal steps for a principal. The term is a Scottish legal designation roughly equivalent to what English law would call an agent or attorney-in-fact. Outside the Scots law context, the term carries no distinct technical meaning in common law jurisdictions.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Someone who does, performs, or executes; an active person, an agent.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "One who does; one who performs or executes; one who is wont and ready to act; an actor; an agent. An agent or attorney; a factor."
The common and legal meanings are close but not identical. In everyday English, "doer" is a general characterization of an active or industrious person. In Scots law, it is a precise term of art designating a legal representative with defined authority to act for a principal — closer in function to "attorney" or "factor" than to the colloquial sense of someone who simply gets things done. Webster's 1913, notably, acknowledges both the ordinary and the legal senses, cross-referencing Burrill directly, which signals the term's visibility in nineteenth-century legal-lay overlap.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "doer" in historical sources must read carefully for jurisdictional context. In a Scots law document, instrument of sasine, or deed of factory, "doer" is a technical term identifying the agent; its presence signals a principal-agent relationship with legal consequences for authority, liability, and ratification. In an English or American source from the same period, "doer" is almost certainly used in its ordinary sense and carries no technical weight.
The trap for corpus researchers is that nineteenth-century American legal dictionaries and treatises — including Black's and Burrill's — include the term primarily as a Scots law entry, meaning its appearance in those reference works does not imply it had currency as a term of art in American practice. Finding "doer" in an American court opinion or contract should prompt skepticism about whether the drafter was trained in Scots law, quoting a Scottish source, or simply using plain English.
The Webster's 1913 entry is an instructive exception: it bridges the legal and common meanings and cites Burrill directly, suggesting that educated nineteenth-century American readers would have recognized the Scots law sense even if they did not use the term themselves.
Corpus connections: Entries on agency, factor, and procurator will be the natural neighbors in any research thread involving this term. In Scots law specifically, "doer" often appears alongside "factor" and "commissioner," terms that overlap in function but differ in formality and scope.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries — Black's (1st and 2nd editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill's — are in full agreement: "doer" in Scots law means an agent or attorney, and all cite the same authority, Kames' Equity (1 Kames, Eq. 325). The uniformity of both definition and citation across dictionaries suggests the entry was carried forward with minimal independent research, each compiler relying on the same upstream source.
Burrill's is the most concise: "In Scotch law. An agent or attorney. 1 Kames' Equity, 325." Black's reproduces this nearly verbatim across both editions. Rapalje & Lawrence follows the same pattern, though the entry as it appears in the source material is disrupted by extraneous content (entries for "dog" and "public documents"), indicating a compilation artifact rather than editorial commentary on "doer" itself.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the practical scope of a doer's authority, how the role related to formal instruments of factory and commission in Scots practice, or how the term mapped onto the broader law of agency as it developed in the nineteenth century. Researchers needing that depth will need to go beyond the dictionary shelf to Scots institutional writers such as Stair or Erskine.
Jurisdictional Note
"Doer" as a term of art is native to Scots law and has no recognized equivalent usage in English common law or American jurisdictions. Researchers working in jurisdictions outside Scotland should treat any appearance of the term as either a direct quotation from Scots sources or as ordinary English usage, not as a term carrying independent legal meaning in the forum.