Talk:Practice of law

Like the prose (2005)

I like the prose in this article. Ground 02:54, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Needs rewriting

Do we really need the full text of the Texas statute? I have no problem understanding it because I'm an attorney; but I remember my first in-class statutory interpretation exercise in law school (we were analyzing the Americans with Disabilities Act) and it was quite a terrifying experience. The point I'm getting at is that most laypersons are not very good at statutory interpretation. Even most treatises and practice guides don't include the full text of statutes except in the appendix. It might be less intimidating to just summarize the elements with citations to various parts of the Texas statute (and other jurisdictions' statutes). --Coolcaesar 03:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Coolcaesar. I had inserted the text of the Texas statute. I have deleted that and replaced it with a brief summary. Yours, Famspear 04:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I went back into the history in this page to find that text of the Texas statute and it was very informative. I'd actually vote for keeping and recommend finding the appropriate statutes for the other states. Information like that is very difficult for a layman to locate. Jeff Carr 22:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The actual text of laws is more appropriate for Wikisource. Superm401 - Talk 01:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Concur with Superm401. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Arizona

The article states that UPL in Arizona is not prohibited by any statute or court rule. This is incorrect. The Supreme Court of Arizona has adopted a court rule which prohibits UPL. See http://www.supreme.state.az.us/media/pdf/uplrule.pdf. If I do not hear a respone in a few days, I will remove the Arizona reference. Sawagner201 00:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

As written it's wrong, but Arizona is unique for how it decriminalized the unlicensed practice of law. It was off the books so long that the Supreme Court decided to fill the gap with rules from their own constitutional authority. The court's control over its rules in turn angered some legislators who went so far as proposing constitutional amendments to make them the last word in court rules. It's probable that it's still the only state that lacks criminal penalties for practicing without a license, and Arizona's history is worth at least a terse statement. Cool Hand Luke 07:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Paragraph needs rewriting, factual beefing-up, sourcing

Most unauthorized practice of law may be unintentional. Probably the most common violators are accountants, paralegals, notaries public, and people who formerly worked for an attorney. Many times what seems to them to be "common knowledge" or "just helping out a friend" in fact crosses the line into practice of law. For instance, many accountants who represent small businesses (This would be more accurate to say corporations.) will "fill out some forms" to create a corporation. Depending on the complexity of the documents and whether they advise the small business, this could be drafting legal documents, which would require a law license. A notary public who reads instructions, asks questions, and tells a person which forms to use and how to fill them out may be giving legal advice. Buying a legal form in a store and helping a friend fill it out involves giving legal advice and drafting legal documents.

Ironically, this whole paragraph in itself sounds like an unauthorized practice of law inasmuch as it more offers advice than summarizes or synthesizes verifiably sourced content. Robert K S (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Removing uncited material

"Information" cannot carry the "citation needed" label indefinitely. A reference must be provided or the "info" has to come out. Some of these tags were over 2 1/2 years old. If you want something restored, restore the info with a proper cite. Some of the info I removed was manifestly incorrect. A lot of non-lawyers look to Wikipedia for information about the law, tragically. Someone needs to make an attempt to purge the worst of the worst of the mis/disinformation that abounds here.Green-Esq (talk) 10:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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Tennessee bankruptcy example

The article states:

The United States bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Tennessee has held that "providing clients with explanations or definitions of such legal terms of art ... is, by itself, giving legal advice."

with no further qualification. However, that Tenn case begins the sentence as "In connection with preparing legal documents". Our article cites a different case (North Carolina State Bar v. Lienguard, Inc.), which contains just our article's quote, but the Lienguard case makes explicit that the Lienguard opinion is solely in a case where that sort of relationship exists (and explicitly not stating any opinion on the more general idea). And other cases that cite it do include in their quotes or discussion of it the detail about specific client relationship ([1]). Should our article include this detail? DMacks (talk) 03:58, 7 October 2018 (UTC)