The activity of Public Notaries in Romania insures the official recognition of the civil or commercial relations as well as the exercise of rights and protection of interests. The Public Notary is invested to fulfill a service of public interest and has an autonomous statute. Notaries activate through individual offices or associative structures, much like attorneys.

Romanian Public Notaries have the following attributions:
a) drafting legal documents, on the request of the parties involved in the proceedings;
b) authentication of documents drafted by the Notary, the party or the attorney (the Notary verifies the identity of the parties, their approval and is present while the parties sign the respective document);
c) inheritance procedures (started by any party with interest in the case);
d) certification of certain facts, according to the Law (e.g. the fact that a person is alive, that is located in a certain place, that a person has shown up at a specific time and date etc.) ;
e) authentication of signatures, specimen signature as well as seals/stamps;
 

f) certification of documents presented by the parties;
g) maintaining records of documents presented by the parties (the Notary will have mention a date, identify the documents with all relevant information, mention the name of the person to whom the records must be released etc.);
h) authentication of copies;
i) authentication of translations.

All Notary procedures are done on request. The documents drafted by the parties or their representatives, shall be verified to fulfill the conditions related to form or content, the Public Notary being able to bring modifications or additions, with the accordance of the parties.
The documents are drafted per the disposition of the parties and in the conditions of the law.

Services of Romanian Public Notaries are used on much broader scale than in other states, especially if  comparing to Anglo-Saxon or Northern European countries. Notaries are registered in a different Bar than attorneys and to each area in the country is assigned a limited number of Notary offices.