Definition
A solicitor is a type of licensed legal practitioner whose role and status varies significantly by jurisdiction and era. Three distinct meanings appear in legal sources:
1. English and Commonwealth law (historical and modern): A solicitor is a lawyer admitted to practice primarily in an advisory and transactional capacity — preparing documents, advising clients, managing litigation behind the scenes, and instructing barristers who appear as advocates in court. Historically, the solicitor's natural home was the court of chancery (equity), distinguishing the role from an attorney, who practiced in the courts of common law. The modern English solicitor, regulated under the Solicitors Act 1974, may in some contexts obtain rights of audience, but the barrister/solicitor division remains the structural backbone of the English legal profession.
2. United States — government officer: In American usage, a solicitor commonly refers to a government law officer below the level of attorney general. The Solicitor General of the United States, for example, represents the federal government before the Supreme Court. Many states, counties, and municipalities designate a "city solicitor" or "county solicitor" as their chief legal officer or local prosecutor. This usage has no direct connection to the English chancery meaning.
3. United States — state court practitioner (historical): In several American states, particularly those with distinct equity courts, "solicitor" was the formal designation for a lawyer practicing in equity, tracking the English chancery tradition. This usage largely disappeared as law and equity merged under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938) and equivalent state reforms.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): One who solicits; in many common law jurisdictions, a type of lawyer whose traditional role is to offer legal services to clients apart from acting as their advocate in court; in England and Wales, a solicitor instructs barristers to act as advocates in court.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who solicits; an attorney or advocate; one who represents another in court — formerly, in English practice, the professional designation of a person admitted to practice in courts of chancery or equity; also, the law officer of a city, town, department, or government.
The gap matters for researchers: in ordinary modern English, "to solicit" means to ask or petition, and the connection between that verb and a legal professional is opaque. Readers encountering "solicitor" in historical American documents may assume the English chancery meaning when the author actually means a municipal law officer — or vice versa. The common English meaning of the root verb also generates confusion with criminal solicitation, which is an entirely separate legal concept.
Common Confusion
Solicitor / Attorney / Barrister: In historical English and American sources, these three terms are frequently used interchangeably, but they carried distinct technical meanings. An attorney practiced in common law courts; a solicitor practiced in equity courts; a barrister appeared as oral advocate in superior courts. Black's and Bouvier's both note that attorneys routinely obtained chancery certificates and thereby became solicitors as well, blurring the line in practice. In modern England and Wales, "attorney" as a professional title has largely dropped away; "solicitor" and "barrister" remain the operative division. In the United States, "attorney" became the universal term after law-equity merger, and "solicitor" survived only in the government-officer sense.
Solicitor / Solicitor General: The Solicitor General is a specific government office, not simply a solicitor employed by the government. The conflation appears in lay writing and occasionally in older legal documents. See RELATED TERMS.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Solicitor General: A senior government law officer. In the United States, the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice represents the federal government before the Supreme Court. Many states have a parallel office. The title tracks government hierarchy, not the chancery practitioner tradition.
City Solicitor / County Solicitor / Municipal Solicitor: The designated legal officer for a local government unit. Common in American practice, particularly in Mid-Atlantic and New England states.
Solicitor of the Treasury / Solicitor of [Department]: Historical American usage for the chief legal officer of a federal department, predating modern general counsel structures.
Why It Matters in Research
Corpus researchers face a three-way disambiguation problem: the English chancery practitioner, the American government law officer, and the occasional American equity practitioner who borrowed the English title. The key is date and jurisdiction. Pre-1938 American sources from states with separate equity courts (e.g., Delaware, New Jersey, South Carolina) use "solicitor" in the English chancery sense. Post-merger sources use it almost exclusively for government officers. English sources from any period use it in the professional sense, but the scope of a solicitor's rights of audience has expanded materially since the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 — historical English sources should not be read as describing the modern English solicitor's role.
Watch for the government-officer usage appearing in constitutional and administrative law materials without explanation. When a 19th-century American opinion refers to "the solicitor," it may mean the government's lawyer in that proceeding — a role equivalent to what modern practice calls a government attorney or agency counsel.
The chancery connection also affects how you read procedural history in equity cases. Pleadings and appearances in historical chancery records are attributed to solicitors, not attorneys of record in the common law sense. Cross-referencing between law and equity dockets requires tracking which practitioners held which certificates.
Researchers using Rapalje & Lawrence will find the most comprehensive historical treatment of the English solicitor's qualifications, including the articled clerk system. Bouvier's emphasizes fiduciary obligations and the distinction between authority to institute versus defend proceedings. Burrill's is most precise on the chancery/equity alignment.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the core English definition — a solicitor is a chancery or equity practitioner — but differ in emphasis. Black's (both editions) leads with the law/equity court distinction and notes the practical overlap with attorneys. Bouvier's foregrounds fiduciary duty and the scope of authority, noting that instituting a suit required special authority while a general retainer sufficed for defense. Burrill's is the most structurally precise, citing Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 26) for the common law/equity correspondence.
Rapalje & Lawrence, drawing on English practice, provides the most expansive definition — encompassing advisory work, document drafting, and general legal assistance — which more closely matches what a modern English solicitor actually does. This breadth is absent from the American-focused dictionaries, which understandably emphasize the court-appearance dimension.
None of the historical sources adequately address the American government-officer meaning as a primary definition, though Webster's 1913 includes it. This is a genuine gap: a researcher relying solely on Black's or Bouvier's will be underprepared for the dominant modern American usage of the term.
Jurisdictional Note
In England and Wales, "solicitor" is a regulated statutory title under the Solicitors Act 1974, administered by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. In the United States, the term has no uniform professional meaning; its force depends entirely on the statutory or constitutional provision creating the specific office. Several American states (notably Delaware and South Carolina) retained distinct equity jurisdiction and solicitor terminology well into the 20th century.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Legal Profession (for the development of the barrister/solicitor distinction and its American reception); Courts of Equity (for the chancery origins of the solicitor's role); Attorney and Solicitor General (for the government-officer usage in American constitutional structure).