Letter to the Editors - February 2008 - from Our Readers
| Jurisdiction | Colorado,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 37 No. 2 Pg. 41 |
| Pages | 41 |
| Publication year | 2008 |
2008, February, Pg. 41. Letter to the Editors - February 2008 - From Our Readers
The Colorado Lawyer
February 2008
Vol. 37, No. 2 [Page 41]
Departments and More
From Our Readers
Letter to the Editors
Letters are published with the consent of the
authors. Readers may send comments about articles published
in The Colorado Lawyer to leonamartinez@cobar.org.
Dear Authors and Editors:
The article, "A Different Kind of Representative
DBA v. PUC Revisited,"(fn1) frustrated me
enough to write to you. The thrust of the article is that
there seems to be conflict between statute and the Rules of
Professional Conduct due to the fact that Title 8 provides
the public with a choice of being represented by a licensed
attorney or a nonlawyer in the administrative hearings
pertaining to workers' compensation matters. The
administrative law judge is confronted with a decision
loyalty to his or her oath to uphold the law, or loyalty to
the Bar to maintain its exclusive jurisdiction over the
business of law
I realize that the Bar's "reason" for
maintaining what appears to be a monopoly is concern that the
public may be harmed by incompetent nonlawyers and will have
no recourse. However, this reasoning is faulty. A member of
the public can sue a layperson who harms him or her, but
rarely can successfully sue a lawyer who harms him or her.
The solution to the problem presented by the article, which
is conspicuously ignored, is the Power of Attorney Act.(fn2)
That statute specifically itemizes the acts the legislature
has granted to a nonlawyer, with emphasis on "appearing
in any court or administrative hearing to prosecute or
defend"(fn3) on behalf of the principal/grantor. When a
person consciously chooses a nonlawyer, and contracts with
the nonlawyer under the authority of the Power of Attorney
Act, there is no "practicing law without a license"
problem. The rules for unauthorized practice of law are
intended to "protect the public" from incompetent
lawyers, not from decisions made with their own free
will.(fn4)
Because the public has the right by statute to be represented
by a nonlawyer (not to mention the right to contract under
both the federal and state constitutions), a judge can
respect the public's right to be represented by a
nonlawyer without any disloyalty to the Bar. However, the
judiciary refuses to acknowledge...
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