In the USA it has been difficult for me to draw a real distinction between a lawyer and Attorney. A quick glance at the wikipedia entries fro attorney and lawyer don’t clear up the distinction as well as I had hoped, although in Canada and other countries I find that there is major and clear distinctions.
From wikipedia’s “Attorney” page:
The American legal system has a united (or fused) legal profession, and does not draw a distinction between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not. Many other common law jurisdictions, as well as some civil law jurisdictions, have a separation, such as the solicitor and barrister/advocate split in the United Kingdom and the advocate/civil law notary split in France. There is also no delegation of routine work to notaries public or their civil law equivalent.