A volte in italiano si può trovare la traduzione letterale (procuratore di fatto), ma in inglese col termine attorney-in-fact si sta ad indicare quello che per noi è la figura dell'agente o rappresentante legale. Si tratta semplicemente di una persona che svolge un'attività legale per conto di altri, una volta che da questi ha ottenuto la procura. La difficoltà di traduzione è dovuta al fatto che negli USA fanno distinzione tra attorney-in-fact e attorney-in-law. In Italia si tratta semplicemente della figura del rappresentante legale.

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Note added at 32 mins (2012-11-23 13:48:37 GMT)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_attorney

The term attorney-in-fact is used in several states of the United States in place of the term agent and should be distinguished from the term attorney-at-law. An attorney-at-law in the United States is a lawyer — someone licensed to practice law in a particular jurisdiction. The Uniform Power of Attorney Act employs the term agent.As an agent, an attorney-in-fact is a fiduciary for the principal, so the law requires an attorney-in-fact to be completely honest with and loyal to the principal in their dealings with each other. If the attorney-in-fact is being paid to act for the principal, the contract is usually separate from the power of attorney itself, so if that contract is in writing, it is a separate document, kept private between them, whereas the power of attorney is intended to be shown to
various other people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_at_law_(United_States)

An attorney at law (or attorney-at-law) in the United States is a practitioner in a court of law who is legally qualified to prosecute and defend actions in such court on the retainer of clients. Alternative terms include counselor (or counsellor-at-law) and lawyer. The United States legal system does not draw a distinction between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not, unlike many other common law jurisdictions (such as England and Wales, which distinguishes between solicitors and barrister, or, in Scotland, advocates), and civil law jurisdictions (such as Italy and France, which distinguish between advocates and civil law notaries). An additional factor which differentiates the American legal system from other countries is that there is no delegation of routine work to notaries public.