5.6 Solicitors / Barristers

UK's split profession:solicitors — the client's first lawyers: advice, transactional drafting, negotiation, litigation management, lower-court advocacy (rights of audience now extended); organised in firms, regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Barristers — advocacy specialists in the higher courts, instructed through solicitors, independent referral practice from chambers, the "counsel" you meet in court, appointed Queen's/King's Counsel as seniors; pupillage as training. (Scotland and the fused-profession US differ — note the UK's own internal variety.) Nepal's fused profession: a single licence — advocate under the Nepal Bar Council Act 2050 — with rights of audience earned in stages (pleading in higher courts after the qualifying years; senior advocate as the distinction rank); the Nepal Bar Association and the bar councils' disciplinary role. Functionally, young Nepali advocates in firms do solicitors' work and court advocates do barristers' work — the split exists as specialisation, not as licence.