Tag: unauthorized practice of law

Is Ticket App violating unauthorized practice of law in Florida?

jstearns2014Leave a comment

The Florida Supreme Court will hear a case from the Florida Bar, asserting that the website TIKD.com violates unauthorized practice of law. There is also an issue of whether the information advertised on the site was false and misleading.

TIKD.com had sued the Florida Bar and the Ticket Clinic in federal court back in November, and the Ticket Clinic has filed a bar grievance against the lawyers who represent TIKD.com.

The Miami Herald reports this latest development in the saga here.

The TIKD website is here.

This case will definitely be a supplement to my discussion of Chapter 2.

 

A JD Alone Does Not A Lawyer Make (so says the NC State Bar)

Ellen MurphyLeave a comment

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

Ronald Newton, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, represents himself as a lawyer even though he acknowledges he has never taken the bar exam and is not licensed to practice law anywhere.

The distinction, according to Newton, who runs a tax firm in Durham, is that anyone who graduates from law school is a “lawyer,” and those who pass the bar and are licensed are “attorneys.”

“I’m not a tax attorney; I’m a tax lawyer,” Newton said this week. “There’s a difference. I think this is a common error people make.”

The error is his, according to the N.C. State Bar, which regulates the practice of law.

The terms are used interchangeably, for purposes of regulation, according to David Johnson, who is in the State Bar section that investigates the unauthorized practice of law.

“Simply graduating from law school is insufficient to be called a lawyer or an attorney,” Johnson said in an email.