In Scotland "law agent" is the general term devised by the legislature to embrace the various writers, solicitors and procura tors entitled to practise as agents in the supreme and inferior courts. The Law Agents (Scotland) Act 1873 now regulates the admission of applicants to the roll of law agents entitled to prac tise in Scotland. The apprenticeship varies from three to five years and the applicant must also pass a general examination and an examination in law unless he is a university graduate. A law agent is removable from the roll upon a petition to the court of session. Separate rolls are kept of law agents entitled to practise (a) in the court of session and (b) in each of the sheriff courts. As in England, the law agent has a limited right of audience, i.e., only in the bill chamber of the court of session and in the inferior courts. Many law agents are members of one or other of the incorporations of which the principal are His Majesty's writers to the signet, the solicitors in the supreme courts, the faculty of procurators in Glasgow, and the society of advocates in Aberdeen. In the United States the term solicitor is used in some States in the sense of a law agent practising before a court of equity.
Some of the great public offices in England and the United States have their solicitors. In England the Treasury solicitor fills an especially important position. He is responsible for the enforcement of payments due to the Treasury, and conducts gen erally its legal business and that of most Government depart ments. The office of king's proctor is combined with that of Treasury solicitor. The Treasury solicitor as nominee of the
Crown acts as administrator of the personal estate of an intes tate which has lapsed to the Crown, and as king's proctor inter venes in cases of divorce where collusion is alleged (see PROCTOR). In Ireland solicitors called Crown solicitors are attached to each circuit, their duty being to prepare the case for the Crown in all criminal prosecutions. In the United States the office of solicitor to the Treasury was created by Act of Congress in 1830. His prin cipal duties were to take measures for protecting the revenue and to deal with lands acquired by the United States judicial process or vested in them by security for payment of debts.
in England, one of the law of ficers of the Crown, first appointed by letters patent in 1461 as deputy of the attorney-general (q.v.), and so called because he was more concerned with matters in chancery. His duties are now practically the same as those of the attorney-general, to whom he is subordinate, and whose business and authority de volves upon him in case of a vacancy. The position of the solicitor general for Scotland in the main corresponds with that of the English solicitor-general. He ranks next to the lord-advocate. In the United States the office of solicitor-general was created by Act of Congress in 187o.