Legal profession is a profession in which legal professionals study, develop and apply law. Usually, there is a requirement for someone choosing a career in law to first pass a bar examination after obtaining a law degree or some other form of legal education such as an apprenticeship in a law office.

It is difficult to generalize about the structure of the profession, because

While in civil law countries there are usually distinct clearly defined career paths in law, such as judge, in common law jurisdictions there tends to be one legal profession, and it is not uncommon, for instance, that a requirement for a judge is several years of practising law privately.

In Ancient Athens, despite being the centralized democracy, the profession of lawyer did not exist, there were only accusers and jurists in the courts, and trials lasted until the time of the clepsydra ended. The office of legal representative did not begin to exist until Ancient Rome, and with the arrival of the Middle Ages the profession went into decline until the Early modern age.

Historically, this has been the first legal specialization. In civil law countries, this is often a lifelong career. In common law legal system, on the other hand, judges are recruited from practising lawyers.

Practising law means advising and representing clients as a private practitioner or in a law firm. In most countries, law graduates need to undergo some sort of apprenticeship, membership in a professional organization and a licence.

The name for this profession is lawyer or attorney in most of the English-speaking world, and advocate in many other countries. The name for this profession in canon law is canonist or canon lawyer.

In civil law countries, but also some common law jurisdictions (notably the United States), there is one Law society for all lawyers who want to provide services to the public. But in the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies, there are two quite separate kinds of lawyers providing legal services to the public.