I've been working on a website for a law firm and have discovered some ambiguities associated with https://schema.org/Attorney

My assumption about the semantic meaning of this type, is that it refers to a Business who's primary service is advising, and representing people or companies in matters related to the law. This business entity could be a single lawyer, or a group of lawyers working together. In addition this business entity could have many non-lawyer employees supporting the business.

But the dictionary terms Attorney is "A person, typically a lawyer, appointed to act for another in business or legal matters." (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/attorney) or "In the most general sense this term denotes an agent or substitute, or one who is appointed and authorized to act in the place or stead of another. (http://thelawdictionary.org/attorney/)

The distinction is that an attorney is a type of person, not a type of business.

In my personal experience in Canada and the US there are many examples of single lawyers operating as the sole lawyer in there business. When people talk about people in this structure they are basically operating as a "sole proprietorship" so the person and business are same thing. In this case the Attorney type is fine. It also makes sense that solo lawyers could have employees such as an assistant helping them with the sole-proprietorship style business.

There are also many lawyers who work as part of a team. In Canada (and I'm pretty confident for the USA as well) groups of lawyers are not legally allowed to incorporate a business which shields the business owners from liability lawsuits against the business. They are legally responsible for the advise they give. So groups of lawyers forming a business create a "Partnership" where all the lawyers share responsibility for the actions of the group. This is typically called a "Law Firm". http://thelawdictionary.org/law-firm/

Basically it's the analogous to a Doctor vs Doctor's office.