New York Court of Appeals now requires a law license to work as a paralegal - but only from suspended and disbarred attorneys

In an extraordinary move, yesterday the New York State Court of Appeals affirmed denial of reinstatement to a disbarred attorney for engaging in PARALEGAL services.

New York does not regulate paralegals, and anyone with or without law degree and with or without a law license can work as a paralegal in New York.

Now - with one exception, for suspended and disbarred attorneys.

My husband has raised that exact issue in federal court in Neroni v Zayas, challenging constitutionality of New York criminal statutes for unauthorized practice of law on equal protection grounds, as applied to people who have never had a law license, as opposed to people don't have a law license because they lost it.

Criminal law must be clear, send a STATUTORY notice by their text (not through a judicial interpretation) and treat all people equally.

Unauthorized practice of law statutes in New York do not mention a distinction in treatment of "lay" (never licensed) individuals, as opposed to suspended or disbarred attorneys.

Thus, the 2nd Department that denied reinstatement to attorney Joel Brandes legislated from the bench expanding the reach of a UPL statute to cover paralegal activities, and the New York State Court of Appeals endorsed and supported that illegal activity.

I also recently wrote about a Chenango County Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dowd who ruled that an attorney in New York (Richard Harlem, son of a judge) may lawfully charge for services of his unlicensed paralegal in drafting legal pleadings - the exact same thing as what Joel Brandes was branded for as UPL - as for "legal services", without any problem, and called my claim that it is UPL ridiculous.

Now, at the highest state court level, New York State Court of Appeals amended the UPL statutes by interpretation and claimed that it was not even an "abuse of discretion" for the 2nd Department to deem a completely legal activity as a crime, and to deny reinstatement to an attorney because of that imagined "crime".

I wonder whether attorney Brandes will go to the U.S. Supreme Court appealing this clearly unlawful and unconstitutional decision.

I am sure an equal protection challenge can be now filed by any suspended or disbarred attorney contesting this ruling, and I will eagerly follow and cover such filings.

It is extraordinarily "disingenuous" (that is the "learned" word used in the court documents for "stupid") and obnoxious for the court to require a law license from a disbarred attorney to do the work that other people do without any law licenses.

But, what can one expect from a court headed by a corrupt prosecutor...