6. What is the difference between a notary and a solicitor?

Solicitors form by far the largest part of the legal profession, providing advice and representation to their clients in the vast majority of the various fields of law whether civil or criminal, contentious or non-contentious, national or international. Notaries, on the other hand, form a small, highly specialised branch of the legal profession, whose main area of specialisation is the preparation and certification of documents so that they may be effective abroad.

One important difference between a notary and a solicitor is that whereas a solicitor's primary duty is to his client, the notary's primary duty is to the world at large, which must be able to rely on the absolute integrity and impartiality of the notary's certificates and documents, for it is on this absolute integrity and impartiality that the performance of the notary's office depends.