Therefore, following that logic, if the provider provides GOOD services, he or she should not be blamed for it.
Especially that what constitutes the practice of law, is not clearly defined in the statutory law of any state within the United States.
Yet, in the glorious state of Pennsylvania, the state where:
- licensed attorneys are so afraid to do their duty to their clients and confront judicial misconduct to such a degree that they rather allowed the "Kids for Cash" scandal to happen rather than to expose it;
- the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania Kathleen Kane's law license was suspended with participation of the very judge (Eakin) who was the target of her investigation; Judge Eakin "resigned" (keeping his pension), his disciplinary case was prosecuted by the subordinates of his friend (who ultimately recused, but still remained the prosecutor's boss), and subordinates of Judge Eakin's friend successfully asked the court for leniency for Judge Eakin, to allow Judge Eakin to keep his pension - while Judge Eakin's decision to suspend Kathleen Kane's law license was not vacated -
in THIS glorious state of Pennsylvania, where the duty of the attorney in order to keep his license is not to do a good job for his or her clients, but to keep mum about misconduct of public officials the attorney is witnessing - a woman, Kimberly Kitchen, was just convicted for providing, for 10 years, legal services as a real estate attorney, while being not licensed as an attorney.
There is no indication in the article about the conviction that the woman did a bad job or that her clients were injured in any way.
The problem is only that she shared her GOOD expertise, and shared it, apparently, well, for 10 years, without permission of the state government and without permission of the lawyers' cartel that operates attorney licensing in the State of Pennsylvania, for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of their clients.
Yes, it is wrong to forge public documents, as she is claimed to have done with her law license.
But, forging public documents, as far as I understand, is not what she was charged for.
The main charge was unauthorized practice of law.
UPL is a "strict liability" offense, which, in my view, is presumptively unconstitutional as an offense where harm to the public does not have to be proven, and it is even more unconstitutional where what constitutes the practice of law is not clearly defined by statutory law of the State of Pennsylvania.
Instead, as in other jurisdictions, Pennsylvania courts tinker ex post facto with particular situations verifying whether this or that act constituted "the practice of law".
Think about it.
Real estate transactions - as every honest lawyer knows - are handled by secretaries, legal assistants and paralegals, often without any participation from an attorney.
It is not even a secret.
Yes, yes, there are "ethical opinions" (like this one, by Florida bar) that a paralegal may prepare documents for a real estate transaction under a lawyer's supervision, but may not do the actual closing.
But, this rule is simply not followed - and especially if closings are done by mail, which happens all the time, and everybody knows about it.
The woman was caught only because, as I understand, times are tough, lucrative real estate business is declining, together with the economy, and the woman was singled out to eliminate her as a competitor, most likely because she was doing a GOOD job.
By the way, in other countries, such as France and Russia, real estate transactions do not require a lawyer at all, they can be done by notaries.
In our United States of America, the land of the free, the home of the brave, a woman was convicted of a felony for doing a good job for her clients for 10 years.
Which, to me, once again exposes the sham of occupational regulation.
People should not be convicted of a felony for doing a good job for their clients.
No comments:
Post a Comment