The Commonwealth Court of the State of Pennsylvania, Judge P. Kevin Brobson, God bless his wisdom, has ruled that a person by the name of Gary H. Powell, was denied "representation of his choice" when the board refused to allow him to be represented by two men with suspended attorney licenses, Don Bailey and Andy Ostrowski.
Of course, Judge Brobson has ruled that representation in front of the board in challenging, on behalf of a client, of denial of unemployment benefits, is not the practice of law.
The ruling that Mr. Powell has a right to "representation of his choice" by non-attorneys raises clear equal protection issues as to litigants before other forums, like courts, because denying litigants in court "representation of their choice", without any restrictions, while allowing litigants before "a referee" the very same thing does not make any sense.
So, deregulation of the legal profession has already started, even though in a clumsy way, I will talk about it in a separate blog post.
The case of Mr. Powell clearly shows how accomplishment of the two tasks:
1) deregulation of the legal profession and undermining the basis of power and corruption for an entire class of American "nobility"; and
2) closing the so-called "justice gap" where the staggering 80% of Americans cannot afford court representation,
can be PRACTICALLY approached.
The vehicle of change should be a petition or lawsuit BY A LITIGANT who wants to be REPRESENTED BY A PERSON OF HIS CHOICE.
Since such an act may be charged as aiding and abetting unauthorized practice of law, the challenge should be first brought in court, as a challenge to constitutionality of state and federal statutes and rules restricting even a criminal defendant's 6th Amendment right to counsel (in a broad sense, as in "advisor", "representative") "of their choice" to only counsel from a list approved (licensed) by the state.
That is especially true when the state restricting the right to counsel is the state prosecuting the criminal defendant.
This is called in civil rights law a "pre-enforcement action". Whether it will succeed - I don't know, there are no guarantees.
But the wording of the Pennsylvania case that Mr. Powell has a right to "representative of his choice" clearly may be used to support an equal protection challenge - such as why my 1st Amendment Petitions Clause right is less worthy of a right for a "representative of my choice" than Mr. Powell's?
The 5th Amendment does not say "the right to a licensed counsel of your own choice", and attorney licensing did not exist at the time the 5th Amendment was enacted.
The doomsday of the licensed legal profession is near. It is only a matter of time who, out of the 80% of Americans who cannot afford representation by licensed attorneys, will file such a lawsuit out of pure despair, opening the floodgates of such lawsuits.
The ruling was in favor of the litigant's right to "representation of his choice".
Whether such a choice will mean punishment for the suspended or disbarred attorneys representing such a litigant before an unemployment benefits panel, is another story. I will continue to analyze this amazing decision in the next blog post.
Stay tuned.
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