I have never had an attorney represent me at closing and I've closed (buy and sell) 10 or 12 times. The process is highly regulated or at least "standardized" and fairly easy to understand and yes there are a ton of papers to sign one by one. My last closing was done in my dining room by a "real estate certified notary" (NFCU refinance 2018), the previous one in a "real estate settlement specialists" office with attorney's in the business but not in the actual settlement (2015). Typically you will get a pre-settlement stack of papers that mirror the papers you will sign at settlement, folks tend to read most of these papers the first time they settle, by the 3rd or 4th time you buy/sell a property you'll just skim the docs and just double check the numbers.
BTW, I'm not talking about "time-shares" that's a whole different thing.
