License To Practice Law Without A License To Practice Law

California Justices Affirm Nonprofits' Right to Practice Without Bar Regulation

I am not a big fan of the legal profession. While I am a student of the laws of our nation, and I trust a few of the lawyers I have met over the many years (including some I worked for), I am not a fan of the Bar Associations around our nation because of the stranglehold that they seem to have on our government. The vast majority of congress critters are lawyers. Almost all of our judges are lawyers. Many of the idiots in the Bush administration are laywers. The ABA has also put a stranglehold on Law Schools, Law School Accreditation, and Bar Exam requirements.

I believe the law has been placed out of reach of the ordinary person. The advantage is always given to those with the most money and the best legal team that money can provide. Thousands of cases involving smaller claims are beaten out of the courts on legal maneuvering, court rules and procedures, and the bias that courts have in favor of those that bring a lawyer to the courtroom. In almost every state the option of a self-trained legal scholar challenging the bar exam for entry into the legal profession (as in the way Abraham Lincoln achieved his status as a lawyer) is no longer an option.

I have been involved in several court situations as a social worker, an advocate, a tenant, a landlord and expert witness. In many cases I was more prepared and more knowledgeable than the lawyers. Several of the lawyers I crossed swords with as a social worker were so unfamiliar with the case history and legal issues involved that their representation was clearly malpractice... yet, the state paid them $70 to $120 per hour as legal counsel or guardian ad litem for parties in the case.

So, it was interesting to read the following article:

Nonprofit groups celebrated Thursday after the California Supreme Court unanimously affirmed their right to practice law without registering with the State Bar.

But the party mood was tempered slightly by the high court's decision to ask the State Bar to conduct a thorough study and recommend whether regulation really is warranted.

"It is incumbent upon the State Bar," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote, "to study whether [such] groups ... actually imperil client interests despite the absence of a profit motive, and to consider how such a danger, if it exists, may be mitigated by regulations consistent with First Amendment principles."

Brad Seligman, executive director of The Impact Fund in Berkeley and one of two attorneys who argued the nonprofits' point of view during oral arguments, saw the bright side, saying the decision "dispels a cloud" that had hovered over the groups' legal work and predicting that the State Bar will propose no changes.

"I think they will conclude there's no problem here that needs fixing," he said.

His opponent, Zacks Utrecht & Leadbetter partner Paul Utrecht, disagreed, contending that a study will conclude "that some kind of State Bar regulation is appropriate -- and I don't think it would be burdensome."

San Francisco's Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which provides various legal and nonlegal services for residents of one of the city's most run-down neighborhoods, brought the case to the high court after the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that state Corporations Code §13406(b) requires nonprofit organizations to register with the State Bar or forfeit the right to get attorneys fees.

The ruling held that unregistered nonprofits couldn't practice law.

THC had been sued by Roy Frye and 14 other residents of a shabby Tenderloin hotel. THC had represented the tenants in a landlord dispute, but the residents weren't pleased with their final share of the financial award.

More than 70 nonprofits across the political spectrum -- from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union to the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation -- signed on as amici curiae in support of THC.

It is noteworthy that the judge left the door open to change his ruling should their be evidence from the "study" that these not-for-profits could not rise to the expectations of the legal profession.