Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, what is the difference between JD and ESQ? Same as lawyer and attorney?

JD is a professional degree that's conferred by a law school. Esquire is pretentious, and one should never refer to yourself as esquire.

Esquire is a regional legal term for member of the Bar.

Like any other word denoting something of values, it's only pretentious when used outside of appropriate context. A normal context is to... identify a lawyer in a case where it's not obvious, such as on an office door next to a tailor's shop and a podiatrist's office.

Anonymous wrote:As this thread makes clear, a lot of people are super touchy about this, so it's best not to call yourself a lawyer if you aren't barred.

However, living and working in DC has often made me wish we had a clear category for people with legal training (i.e. law school, and perhaps even passing the bar) but who are not currently barred attorneys. There are many, many people in this city with legal backgrounds who don't practice. Some maintain their bar membership but many do not -- they work in policy or research or consulting and will never represent a client as an attorney, so they don't bother. But they know a lot more about the law than people who didn't go to law school.

As a practical matter though, if you say someone is a lawyer, they assume you could represent them in court. So it's best to only use that word to describe people who legally can do that.