No, your parent isn’t your “attorney”

The “attorney” in “power of attorney” has nothing to do with lawyers. If the word has been making the whole thing feel heavier and more official than it is—like there’s a law firm somewhere enforcing it—you can let that go. There isn’t.

Two very different “attorneys”

English inherited the word from an old French verb meaning “to appoint” or “assign.” An attorney is just “an appointed person.” Over time it split into two terms:

• Attorney-at-law—a lawyer: licensed, bar-admitted, represents people in legal matters.
• Attorney-in-fact—anyone you appoint to act for you in practical (“in fact”) matters. Your mom, your roommate, literally any adult. No license, no legal training, no bar exam.

When your parent is named in a power of attorney, they become your attorney-in-fact—an appointed helper. That’s the entire meaning.

Why the confusion matters

People who think “attorney = lawyer” tend to assume:

• “A lawyer set this up, so it must be hard to undo”—no. Even when a lawyer drafted the document, undoing it is a standard process that doesn’t involve them.
• “I’d have to go against a lawyer to cancel it”—no. There’s no lawyer on the other side. Revoking is between you, the agent, and the institutions holding copies.
• “Courts are involved somehow”—no. No court creates a POA and no court is needed to revoke one.

The intimidating vocabulary is doing a lot of unearned work. Strip it away and a POA is a permission slip—an unusually powerful one, which is exactly why it’s worth deciding deliberately whether yours should still exist.