Who Is a Lawyer?

All persons are equal before the law and the courts. To legally guarantee the principle of equality, equal and identical treatment of all persons before judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative authorities is a necessary condition of fair process. To this end, everyone, without discrimination on any basis such as sex, race, color, language, religion, political opinion, or other characteristics, is entitled to seek redress and to fair process. Persons have the right, from the beginning to the end of proceedings before any deciding authority — whether judicial or quasi-judicial — to freely choose a lawyer. Imposing a lawyer on someone, or restricting their right to freely choose one, is prohibited. In the Islamic system, the duty of lawyers is to defend their client in pursuit of their rights, and given the important role lawyers play in the judicial system and the administration of justice, they must be immune from prosecution on account of defending their client's rights and must be able to act independently, free of any domestic or foreign political pressure, threat, or harassment. A lawyer is someone who is engaged by another person — whether a legal entity or a natural person — under a contract of agency (vekalat) to carry out a task.

Agency is a permissible contract under which one party appoints the other as their representative to carry out a matter. The party granting the agency is called the principal (movakkel), and the party receiving it is called the agent/lawyer (vakil). In prosecutors' offices and courts, pursuing a case and presenting a defense is done either by the person themselves or by a licensed attorney acting as their agent; representation in courts and prosecutors' offices is carried out by a licensed attorney. A licensed attorney may be present at every stage of proceedings in civil and criminal cases, and anyone may, by retaining a licensed attorney, grant them power of attorney at any stage before the prosecutor's office, criminal court, revolutionary court, civil court, family court, civil enforcement, criminal enforcement, the provincial court of appeal, the Supreme Court, the Administrative Justice Court, and so on.

Types of agency (vekalat)

a) General/absolute agency: meaning a person is appointed as agent for all matters, covering the principal's administrative and financial affairs, such as buying, selling, or paying household expenses — in this type, the agent's actions do not require the principal's separate permission for each act.

b) Limited/specific agency: in this type, the subject matter of the agency is specific and defined, and the agent must act only within that defined matter — for example, buying a house or selling a car.

Representation in courts

Since filing a civil or criminal lawsuit on a given matter generally can only be done once, except for matters or cases exempted from this rule, obtaining the necessary information through legal consultation, or retaining a licensed attorney to bring or defend a claim, can be useful in resolving the problems that arise. Of course, consulting a lawyer is not limited to cases where legal problems have already arisen — one can consult a lawyer even before taking an action and before problems arise, to address the matter preventively.

Granting agency may be done through one of the following methods:

Retained agency (vekalat-e ta'yini): agency referred by a person to a lawyer of their own choosing and selection, which may, depending on the case, be given to a first-degree or second-degree licensed attorney.