Oh no India did away with the solicitor - barrister distinction. There's only one category now - advocates. So you'll find people who will use the title ``solic

Oh no India did away with the solicitor - barrister distinction. There's only one category now - advocates. So you'll find people who will use the title ``solicitor'' to describe themselves and the work they do, which is akin to what UK solicitors do - but every lawyer in India can go officially go to court and fight cases. The solicitor types are mostly seen in specialised fields like patents and revenue law, and these lawyers prefer to just do the legwork and not go to court (because as you rightly observed, some lawyers have more knowledge about the court and the systems that come with it). Generally such `solicitors' keep a couple of lawyers with them in a retainer-type arrangement - "whatever cases I get, I'll do the paperwork, and you go stand in court, and we split the fee a certain way". Source: High school buddy of mine does this exact thing for land revenue cases.