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Unauthorized Practice Law (UPL) occurs when non-lawyers offer legal advice, prepare legal documents or represent clients in court. Penalties are faced if convicted. UPL laws protect consumers from fraudulent activity and restrict non-lawyers and unqualified lawyers. Legal assistants, paralegals, notaries and accountants also have their activities restricted. Different areas have different restrictions, so professionals with legal implications should check regional UPL laws when they move. Accidental UPL is common and a warning is usually sufficient to prevent it from happening again. Courts can take action if the person’s “services” end up being harmful to clients. The Internet has proved a particular subject of scrutiny for UPL.
When someone who is not qualified to practice law offers legal advice, prepares legal documents or represents a client in court, this is known as Unauthorized Practice Law (UPL). Individual regions have their own statutes about what is considered unauthorized and the line between perfectly legal activity and objectionable activity is sometimes thin and fuzzy. If someone is convicted of this, he will face penalties; in many regions, people are warned and asked to simply desist before a case is started, as in some cases people are unknowingly violating statutes on the unauthorized practice of the law.
The laws against UPL are designed to protect consumers from fraudulent activity. As a general rule, they specifically restrict non-lawyers from any form of legal practice, as well as lawyers who are not qualified for the bar of a specific region. For example, a Florida attorney cannot practice law in Illinois unless he or she is qualified to practice law in Illinois or these states have reciprocity agreements between attorneys. Legal assistants, paralegals, notaries and accountants also have their activities restricted by these statutes.
Things can get confusing when different areas have different restrictions. In some areas, for example, legal document assistants have a lot of leeway, and their actions in one region might be considered unauthorized legal practices in another. As a general rule, people in any profession with legal implications should check regional UPL laws when they move, to ensure they are working within the law.
In some cases, the unauthorized practice is entirely accidental. For example, an accountant offers legal advice to a friend or a notary prepares some legal documents for a client. In this case, both parties are often unaware that the activity is actually illegal, and a warning is usually sufficient to prevent it from happening again. In other cases, someone might falsely claim to be a lawyer, or someone might be offering legal services without being qualified.
In these cases of unauthorized legal practice, a court can take action, especially if the person’s “services” end up being harmful to his or her clients. The plethora of legal advice and document preparation services on the Internet has proved a particular subject of scrutiny, as it can be difficult to obtain information about legal qualifications and experience from a website. As a result, some people have been tricked into buying legal documents and services from people who are not authorized to offer them, which can lead to legal catastrophes and general confusion.
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