And another thing

Mark, one of the managers of my old office building, told me a story about a conversation among a gaggle of young lawyers and professionals walking through the lobby. One of the lawyers, an associate at a "prestigious" national, nay, international firm, was busy making it very clear that he was not just a lawyer. No, he was something more: an attorney. If I recall Mark's story correctly, this lawyer went on to describe how he had explained that same distinction to his family at Thanksgiving.

People. Get over yourselves.

Think of it this way: imagine that you are trying to convince a roomful of [mere?] laypersons that there is a distinction between "lawyer" and "attorney," and that you are the latter, a member of some more prestigious, accomplished, and respectable subset of those-with-law-licenses. Now, if you can, try to imagine the thoughts passing through the minds of those whom you have just addressed. Do you imagine that they respect you more thanks to the speech you've just given, or less?

If you tried that little scenario in real life, I know which outcome I'd bet on.

In case you were wondering, I use both the terms "lawyer" and "attorney" interchangeably, as I believe they should be used. I view "attorney" as the more formal term and use it on my business card and letterhead. A certificate from the Supreme Court, State of Colorado, declares that I am an "Attorney and Counselor at Law," a phrase too clumsy for everyday speech. But I use both "attorney" and "lawyer" to communicate the same content about their referent, and view neither as derogatory nor superlative relative to the other.

When lawyers — by which I mean attorneys — try to bend those words to elevate one above the other, it maligns only the speaker, and just reinforces stereotypes of "attorney" elitism. Edited to add: I'm not saying that law practice isn't a profession that brings with it responsibility and, among some practitioners, honor. I'm only saying that I find no useful distinction of meaning between the words "attorney" and "lawyer." I would hold them both up to that level of responsibility and respect. (I do think "attorney" is the more formal term.) The fellow who insists on being called one word instead of the other just makes us all look silly.