I have heard the term non-lawyer used throughout my career but recently I have found its use jarring. Here is someone that is often vastly more qualified than me in their chosen field and who has spent years in the legal industry but is first described to me as a non-lawyer. It is a level of clarification which, in my view, is unhelpful, unnecessary and often derogatory.
However, before dissecting the term non-lawyer further, it is important to delineate here that I do not condone someone holding themselves out as being authorised to provide legal services when they are not. It is a criminal offence to do so and such strong repercussions are needed to maintain confidence in the legal profession. It follows that I am not talking about the public at large in this instance. I am talking about a term which is used within the legal industry and one which I question whether we can do without.
