You might be considering representing yourself in an upcoming court case. It is possible to do this because there are resources available online and elsewhere that give you the information you would need. However, not everyone is up to the big challenge that this faces, and if yours is a case in which you have vested emotional interest, it might be better to choose a professional lawyer to represent you in court instead.
Although you may have thought otherwise, a lawyer and an attorney are not one and the same. An attorney is someone who has been granted legal standing to act on someone else’s behalf. A lawyer, on the other hand, is a person who has gone to school for several years, passed extensive examinations, and received a license to practice law as a professional. Lawyer licenses are issued by each individual state.
So what does “power of attorney” mean, then? Simply, if someone, perhaps an aging elder, has given you their power of attorney, it means that you are now in charge of taking care of certain important issues on their behalf. You are not a lawyer in this instance; you might work as a store clerk, or a postal worker, or a mechanic, but you still qualify as being capable of handling the power of attorney for another person.
The law is very complicated and differs from state to state. This is why many people hire a lawyer to represent them in court. You might be facing a criminal suit, where a crime has been committed, or a civil suit, where a lawsuit or a contract dispute is in question, but in either situation, you will want a lawyer there who understands the law and will represent your interests professionally.
Just as physicians have areas of specialization, so, too, do lawyers. You might need a tax lawyer, or a contract lawyer, or a criminal lawyer, or a lawyer for a class-action lawsuit, and there are lawyers in these areas of expertise ready to help you. It saves time and often money, in the long run, to utilize the services of a professional lawyer when you have to go to court.