Unauthorized Practice of Law - Another Point of View

I have an idea for illustrating the absurdity of the current tenor of enforcement against the “unauthorized practice of law” in Florida. It will probably never convince the Florida Bar to let up on the persecution of legal document preparers, but it might make some people realize just how hypocritical the Florida Bar is.

As I learned firsthand from a recent lawsuit against me, law is a complicated field. It has many specialties. When I needed to hire an attorney in another state to help me with that lawsuit, the first law office I called directed me to the local “expert” attorney in that particular specialty field of law. In that small jurisdiction, he qualified as the local expert in that specialty area because he had successfully prosecuted a case all the way to that state’s Supreme Court. It makes some sense: If you have an auto accident, you would probably do better if you had an attorney who specialized in auto accident cases. (To further illustrate my point, I’ll refer to the tort I was sued for generically, as “Tort X.”)

When my plaintiff lost in his home state and sued me in Florida, he tried to bolster his case with references to another Tort X lawsuit that had certain parties I’ll call Jones vs. Mackey. Something that happened in that case is instructive. The Plaintiff, Jones, didn’t hire an attorney who was a specialist in Tort X. He hired an attorney who had spent his career on cases involving real estate foreclosures.


Why? I don’t know. I’m guessing no attorney who specialized in Tort X would take what was obviously a lousy case. But I’d like to argue that, if UPL is going to be so strongly prosecuted, then UPL should be expanded to include attorneys like Jones’ who practice a type of law outside their range of expertise and experience.

And why shouldn’t such an attorney be prosecuted just as violently as the Florida Bar prosecutes legal document preparers? By practicing outside their expertise, attorneys like Jones’ are exposing their clients to exactly the same risks that the Bar claims legal document preparers are exposing their customers to. Would you see an ear, nose and throat doctor for an ingrown toenail? Of course not. A wise ENT, except in emergency, would give you a referral to a podiatrist. An attorney who did not do the same should be prosecuted for it.

Maybe what the Florida Bar needs is a taste of its own medicine.

Guest Blog, published with permission from the author, Jim Holding