The following points are aimed at new or aspiring attorneys in the United States. Other common-law jurisdictions, or other English-speaking jurisdictions, may have different regulations or use the terms d.
Amidst the “folk stupidity” or “folk anti-wisdom” available from “the Internet”, artificial anti-wisdom platforms and urban myths is the idea that a “lawyer” is someone holding a law degree, and an “attorney” is someone holding a law license. So one can get the idea that someone with a J.D./L.L.B. from some law school, accredited or otherwise, may hold herself out as a “lawyer” validly, regardless of whether that someone has ever even applied to a Bar, taken a bar exam, passed or failed that exam, or been turned down on character and fitness grounds.
People have a right of free speech, and most forms of misleading communicat6ions or even fraud that do not involve the inducement of money payments escape legal consequences. It is unlikely that, e.g., lying in a bar to get a phone number of an acquaintance, can be prosecuted/support a cause of action in court, in most circumstances, under First Amendment grounds. But this is not for lawyers/attorneys or for aspirants to the same status, when the topic involves our identities, capacities or
The rules are engineered to rebuke those who, having been misled, proceed to mislead others regarding the nature of their capacity to function as legal counsel. Model ethics rule 7.1, as adapted in various jurisdictions such as Maryland – often interchanging “attorney” and “lawyer” – prohibits ALL misleading statements regarding the nature of services offered.
Per Model Rule 7.1: A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services. A communication is false or misleading if it contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading.
The rule applies everywhere – even in communications to one’s mother. It’s a 24 hour/day rule. Inducing people to believe that you are a Bar member is inherently misleading when not true, and cute games about “lawyer” vs. “attorney” will lead Bar Counsel and character committees to show little humor. In Maryland, Bar Counsel has jurisdiction over the unauthorized practice of law, and it’s the Bar applicant’s burden to prove honesty and fitness by clear and convincing evidence to the Character Committee. Misleading people about being licensed – anywhere – is a good way to delay a license, or to put that license under unwelcome ethical scrutiny after issuance.
Whoever induces a recent law school grad to get this wrong, puts a stumbling block before the blind. One of the survival skills of a new attorney is to distinguish trustworthy people, places and things from the untrustworthy. Whoever gives this advice, to hold oneself out as a “lawyer” when unlicensed, is untrustworthy, at best grossly negligent, and needs to go into the “untrustworthy box” for any attorney starting out a career.