Editing Notary public (section)

==Overview==
Notaries are appointed by a government authority, such as a court, governor, county commissioners, or lieutenant governor, or by a regulating body often known as a society or faculty of notaries public. For lawyer notaries, an appointment may be for life, while lay notaries are usually commissioned for a briefer term (often 3 to 5 years in the U.S.), with the possibility of renewal.

In most common law countries, appointments and their number for a given notarial district are highly regulated. However, since the majority of American notaries are lay persons who provide officially required services, commission numbers are not regulated, which is part of the reason why there are far more notaries in the United States than in other countries (4.5 million<ref>
{{cite web
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 |title       = History of the NNA
 |access-date  = 9 July 2006
 |url-status     = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20060712011641/http://www.nationalnotary.org/about/index.cfm?text=aboutHistory
 |archive-date = 12 July 2006}}
</ref> vs. approx. 740 in [[England and Wales]] and approx. 1,250 in Australia and New Zealand). Furthermore, all U.S. and some Canadian notarial functions are applied to domestic affairs and documents, where fully systematized attestations of signatures and acknowledgment of deeds are a universal requirement for document authentication. In the U.S., notaries public do not authenticate ''documents'' in a traditional sense: instead, they authenticate that the ''signature(s)'' on a document belongs to the person(s) claiming to be the signer(s), thus ensuring trust among interested parties. By contrast, outside North American common law [[jurisdiction (area)|jurisdictions]], notarial practice is restricted to international legal matters or where a foreign jurisdiction is involved,<ref>[http://www.warners-solicitors.co.uk/business-notary.html ''Notary''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100424221100/http://www.warners-solicitors.co.uk/business-notary.html |date=24 April 2010 }}. (2008). Kent, England: Warners Law LLP. Retrieved on 22 January 2009.</ref> and almost all notaries are also qualified lawyers.

For the purposes of authentication, most countries require commercial or personal documents which originate from or are signed in another country to be notarized before they can be used or officially recorded or before they can have any legal effect. To these documents a notary affixes a '''notarial certificate'''–a separate document stating the notarial act performed and upon which the party(ies) and notary sign–which attests to the execution of the document, usually by the person who appears before the notary, known as an '''appearer''' or '''constituent''' (U.S.). In the U.S., many documents include the notarial wording within the document, thus eliminating the need for an additional page for the certificate only (i.e., the document is signed and notarized, including application of the Notary's seal). In cases where notaries are also lawyers, such a notary may also draft legal instruments known as '''notarial [[Act (document)|acts]]''' or '''[[deed]]s''' which have probative value and executory force, as they do in civil law jurisdictions. Originals or secondary originals are then filed and stored in the notary's archives, or '''protocol'''. As noted, ''lay'' notaries public in the U.S. are forbidden to advise signers as to which type of act suits the signer's situation: instead, the signer must provide the certificate/wording that is appropriate.

Notaries are generally required to undergo special training in the performance of their duties, often culminating in an examination and ongoing education/re-examination upon commission renewal. Some states have no training for their notaries public. Some must also first serve as an apprentice before being commissioned or licensed to practice their profession. In some countries, even licensed lawyers, e.g., [[barrister]]s or [[solicitor]]s, must follow a prescribed specialized course of study and be mentored for two years before being allowed to practice as a notary (e.g., British Columbia, England). However, notaries public in the U.S., of which the vast majority are lay people, require only a brief training seminar and are expressly forbidden to engage in any activities that could be construed as the unlicensed [[practice of law]] unless they are also qualified attorneys. That said, even lay notaries public must know all applicable laws in their jurisdiction (e.g., state) to practice, and a commission could be revoked for a single deviation from such laws. Notarial practice is universally considered to be distinct and separate from that of an attorney (solicitor/barrister). In England and Wales, there is a course of study for notaries which is conducted under the auspices of the University of Cambridge and the Society of Notaries of England and Wales. In the State of Victoria, Australia, applicants for appointment must first complete a Graduate Diploma of Notarial Practice which is administered by the [[Sir Zelman Cowen]] Centre in Victoria University, Melbourne. The United States is a notable exception to these practices: lawyer-notaries need only be approved by their jurisdiction and possibly by a local court or bar association.

In bi-juridical jurisdictions, such as [[South Africa]] or [[Louisiana]], the office of notary public is a legal profession with educational requirements similar to those for attorneys. Many even have institutes of higher learning that offer degrees in notarial law. Therefore, despite their name, "notaries public" in these jurisdictions are in effect civil law notaries.