Definition
A grant of attorney is the formal legal instrument by which one person (the grantor or principal) confers authority upon another person (the attorney-in-fact or agent) to act on the grantor's behalf in legal, financial, or other specified matters. The document itself creates the agency relationship; the person so authorized is said to hold a "power of attorney," and the instrument granting that power is the grant of attorney.
The grant may be general, conferring broad authority to act across a range of matters, or special (limited), restricting the agent's authority to a specific transaction or class of transactions. Modern usage has largely absorbed the phrase "grant of attorney" into the broader term "power of attorney," which now commonly refers both to the instrument and the authority it conveys.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Attorney" in ordinary English typically means a lawyer — a person licensed to practice law and represent clients in legal proceedings.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines "attorney" as one who is legally appointed to transact business for another, with specific acknowledgment that the term covers both attorneys-at-law (lawyers) and attorneys-in-fact (agents appointed by private instrument).
The gap matters for researchers. When historical sources speak of "granting an attorney" or a "grant of attorney," they almost never mean hiring a lawyer. They mean the formal appointment of an agent through a written instrument. Conflating the two meanings produces serious misreadings of older deeds, conveyances, and probate records, where grants of attorney were routine mechanisms for conducting business at a distance.
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Common Confusion
Grant of attorney and power of attorney are functionally synonymous in most historical and modern usage, but the phrasing signals different things about the source's age and context. "Grant of attorney" is the older formulation, appearing frequently in English and early American conveyancing practice. "Power of attorney" became the dominant term through the nineteenth century and is now standard. Researchers encountering "grant of attorney" in older instruments should read it as equivalent to a power of attorney, not as a distinct legal category.
Do not confuse either term with a retainer agreement or engagement letter, which is the modern instrument by which a client hires a lawyer. That relationship is governed by contract and professional responsibility rules, not by the law of agency instruments.
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Why It Matters in Research
The phrase "grant of attorney" is largely archaic in American legal usage but appears with regularity in pre-twentieth-century sources: colonial and early republic deeds, probate inventories, land records, and chancery proceedings. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus will encounter it most often in primary source reprints, historical treatises, and digest entries organized under older taxonomies.
Several navigational traps deserve attention. First, historical indexes may file "grant of attorney" under "attorney," "agency," or "principal and agent" — with no consistent cross-referencing between them. A corpus search limited to "power of attorney" will miss relevant older entries. Second, the authority granted by such instruments was historically construed strictly: an agent's act outside the precise scope of the grant was void as to the principal. This strict construction principle shows up in early American case law and treatise commentary and differs from the more flexible apparent authority doctrine that developed later. Third, durability — whether the grant of attorney survives the principal's incapacity — was not a recognized concept in common law. Instruments silent on the question were presumed to terminate upon incapacity. The durable power of attorney is a twentieth-century statutory creation, and its emergence fundamentally changed what a "grant of attorney" could accomplish. Researchers tracing the evolution of this doctrine will find the pre-durable era literature assumes the older termination-upon-incapacity rule without stating it explicitly.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry retrieved under this search concerns confession in criminal law and does not address grant of attorney — an apparent indexing artifact. The entry is not instructive for this term and has been set aside.
The broader Rapalje & Lawrence dictionary, consistent with other nineteenth-century American law dictionaries, treated the law of attorney primarily through the principal-and-agent framework, with specific attention to the formalities required for a valid grant (writing, signature, often acknowledgment before a notary for instruments affecting real property), the scope of authority conveyed, and the methods of revocation. Historical dictionaries are generally reliable on formation requirements but largely silent on durability and on the statutory reforms that followed the Uniform Durable Power of Attorney Act (1979) and its successors, including the Uniform Power of Attorney Act (2006). Researchers should treat pre-1980 dictionary entries as incomplete on any question touching incapacity planning.
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Jurisdictional Note
Formal execution requirements for a grant of attorney — particularly one affecting real property or intended to be durable — vary by state. Most states have enacted some version of the Uniform Power of Attorney Act or a predecessor uniform act, but the specific witnessing, notarization, and statutory form requirements differ. Instruments valid in one state may face execution challenges if used to convey property in another.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Durable Powers of Attorney — Uniform Power of Attorney Act and State Variations (The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia)
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