An
attorney at law (or
attorney-at-law) in the United States is a practitioner in a
court of
law who is legally qualified to
prosecute and defend actions in such court on the
retainer of clients. Alternative terms include
counselor (or
counsellor-at-law) and
lawyer. As of April 2011, there were 1,225,452 licensed attorneys in the United States. A 2012 survey conducted by
LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell determined 58 million consumers in the U.S. sought an attorney in the last year and that 76 percent of consumers used the Internet to search for an attorney.