MENT OF ATTORNEYS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

MENT OF ATTORNEYSAuthored

The Law Mind • 928 words

Definition

Note: This entry addresses MENT OF ATTORNEYS as it appears to be a truncated or corrupted form of one of two established legal terms: APPOINTMENT OF ATTORNEYS or PAYMENT OF ATTORNEYS. The entry treats both, as the source material and associated encyclopedia entries suggest the term spans both concepts. Researchers encountering "ment of attorneys" in historical documents should determine from context which complete term is intended.

1. APPOINTMENT OF ATTORNEYS. The formal act by which a party authorizes another person — an attorney — to appear and act on their behalf in legal proceedings or transactions. In its older sense, this encompassed both the granting of authority to a legal representative and the written instrument memorializing that grant. In modern usage, the appointment may arise by written retainer, power of attorney, or court order, and carries with it defined duties and scope of representation.

2. PAYMENT OF ATTORNEYS. The obligation to compensate legal counsel for services rendered. In litigation, this raises the foundational question of who bears the cost: the client who retained counsel, or the opposing party. The allocation of attorneys' fees is a distinct legal question governed by statute, contract, court rule, or equitable doctrine.

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Common Confusion

APPOINTMENT OF ATTORNEYS is sometimes conflated with POWER OF ATTORNEY. The two are related but distinct: a power of attorney is a specific instrument granting authority to act on another's behalf — most commonly in non-litigation contexts such as financial or healthcare decisions — while an appointment of attorneys in the litigation sense refers to the establishment of a legal representative relationship before a tribunal. Researchers should not assume that historical references to "ment of attorneys" in probate or estate contexts refer to litigation counsel; they more likely refer to a principal-agent instrument.

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Why It Matters in Research

The fragmented form of this term — "ment of attorneys" — is a practical signal to researchers that they are working with a truncated source: a damaged text, a corrupted index entry, or an incomplete transcription. Before treating this as a standalone legal concept, verify the full term in the original document.

For APPOINTMENT OF ATTORNEYS in the historical sense: pre-nineteenth century sources, including Bouvier's and earlier English treatises, use this phrase to describe what modern practice calls retainer agreements or letters of engagement. The formal appointment was often a prerequisite to an attorney's right to appear in court, and the absence of a proper appointment could be raised as a procedural defect. Researchers working in pre-Civil War American records or English common law materials should be alert to this procedural dimension.

For PAYMENT OF ATTORNEYS in the modern research context: the American Rule — that each party bears its own attorneys' fees absent a statutory or contractual exception — is the default in federal and most state courts, but the exceptions are numerous and growing. Fee-shifting statutes in civil rights, employment discrimination, environmental, and consumer protection contexts mean that fee entitlement is often a heavily litigated issue in its own right. Researchers using the Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia will find this doctrine treated in detail under the Attorneys' Fees entry. Tax researchers should note that the deductibility of attorneys' fees paid in discrimination cases was significantly altered by federal legislation; the Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia entry on attorney fee deductions addresses the current framework.

Historical sources, including Bouvier's, focus almost entirely on the appointment and authority dimensions of attorney relationships, not on fee allocation. Fee-shifting as a doctrine is largely a product of twentieth-century statutory development and is poorly served by any pre-1900 dictionary source.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's Law Dictionary does not contain a dedicated entry for "ment of attorneys" as a standalone term. The source material provided under this heading in the present corpus appears to be a misaligned or corrupted index entry — the text supplied under this term is Bouvier's entry for COUNT, which concerns earls and pleading narratives and has no direct relationship to attorneys. This is a data integrity issue researchers should note: index corruption in digitized historical dictionaries can produce spurious cross-references. The COUNT entry is entered separately in this dictionary under its own heading.

For the underlying concepts, Bouvier's does address the appointment of attorneys in the context of agency and appearance, treating the formal written appointment as essential to an attorney's standing to act. Bouvier's is largely silent on fee allocation as a distinct legal question — consistent with the pre-statutory era in which the work was written.

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Jurisdictional Note

The Uniform Power of Attorney Act, adopted in whole or with modifications in a majority of states, has standardized much of the law governing appointment of attorneys-in-fact in non-litigation contexts. Litigation appointment rules remain governed by individual court rules and state bar regulations, which vary significantly.

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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)
Attorneys' Fees — American Rule and Exceptions (The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia)
Deductions — Attorney Fees in Discrimination Cases (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia)

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MENT OF ATTORNEYSmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

COUNT (Fr. comte; from the Latin comes). An earl. It gave way as a distinct title to the Saxon earl but was retained in countess, viscount, and as the basis of county. Termes de la ley; 1 Bla. Com. 898. See COMES. In Pleading (Fr. conte, a narrative). The plaintiff's statement of his cause of action. This word, derived from the French conte, a nar- rative, is in our old law-books used synonymously with declaration; but practice has introduced the following distinction. When the plaintiff's com- plaint embraces only a single cause of action, and he makes only one statement of it, that statement is called, indifferently, a declaration or count; though the former is the more usual term. But when the suit embraces two or more causes of action (each of which, of course, requires a different statement), or when the plaintiff makes two or more different statements of one and the same cause of action, each several statement is called a count, and all of them, collectively, constitute the declaration. In all cases, however, in which there are two or more counts, whether there is actually but one cause of action or several, each count purports, upon the face of it, to disclose a distinct right of action, un- connected with that stated in any of the other counts. One object proposed in inserting two or more counts in one declaration when there is in fact but one cause of action, is, in some cases, to guard against the danger of an insufficient statement of the cause, where a doubt exists as to the legal sufficiency of one or another of two different modes of declaring; but the more usual end proposed in inserting more than one count in such case is to accommodate the statement to the cause, as far as may be, to the possible state of the proof to be exhibited on trial, or to guard, if possible, against the hazard of the proofs varying materially from the statement of the cause of action; so that, if one or more of several counts be not adapted to the evidence, some other of them may be so; Gould, Pl. c. 4, ss. 2, 3, 4; Steph. Pl. 266; Doctrina Plac. 178; 3 Com. Dig. 291; Dane, Abr. Index. In real actions, the declaration is usually called a count; Steph. Pl. 29. See COMMON COUNTS.