An attorney at law (also known simply as an attorney or lawyer) in the United States is a person licensed to practice law by the highest court of a state or other jurisdiction. Alternative terms include attorney-at-law and attorney and counselor (or counsellor) at law. 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 in the American system.