Powers of Attorney, Strictly Speaking

It appears established that a power of attorney falls within the taxonomic parameters of the law of agency. Manifold judicial remarks are testament to this. These describe a power of attorney as 'a species of agency'1 and 'merely the appointment of an agent', such that the term 'attorney' is a synonym for 'agent' or at least 'a particular type of agent'. Accordingly, it is said, a valid power of attorney creates a relationship of principal and agent, 'is in principle no more than the grant of a form of agency,' and so 'depends for its efficacy' on agency law. This may in turn explain why powers of attorney have traditionally received comparatively little discrete commentary, usually relegated to sporadic reference in works on agency law. In this vein, a commentator remarked, in 1989, that '[t]he power of attorney occupies one of those remote corners of agency that has received comparatively little attention.