by Tom Gordon

Responsive Law has filed a brief in support of the South Carolina NAACP in its effort to provide free legal advice to tenants facing eviction proceedings in the state. South Carolina has one of the highest eviction rates in the country. Additionally, 99% of South Carolinians facing eviction go through the process without any legal representation. However, the state's restrictions on the unauthorized practice of law ("UPL") make it a felony for anyone but a lawyer to provide legal advice. Our brief argues that these UPL restrictions are a violation of the First Amendment rights of South Carolinians to receive information from the NAACP.

by Tom Gordon

In a brief filed yesterday, Responsive Law urged the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to uphold a lower court decision preventing the New York attorney general from enforcing unauthorized practice of law (UPL) laws against a nonprofit providing consumers with free legal advice about debt collection using experts who are not lawyers.

Responsive Law's brief emphasizes that not only does the nonprofit have a First Amendment right to speak on legal matters, but that the recipients of this speech have a right to hear it.

Furthermore, the state's claimed interest in protecting consumers from harm ignores the history of UPL laws in New York. There is clear historical evidence that these laws were put in place at the urging of lawyers to protect them from competition, Consumer protection was merely an after-the-fact justification.

Responsive Law also argues that the state cannot claim that it is protecting consumers when the “protection” it provides cuts them off from the only legal help available to them.

Responsive Law would like to thank Greg Beck for his volunteer work in writing the brief. You can read our entire brief in ​Upsolve v. James here.

by Tom Gordon

Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that TIKD, an app that helped people affordably fight traffic tickets, was engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. If you want to read legal arguments about why TIKD's service does not fall under UPL laws, you should read Responsive Law's amicus brief in the case, as well as the dissenting opinion to the court's decision. But the bigger issue here is not the legal standard for UPL; it's the system that continues to maintain those laws as a weapon against consumer choice, while claiming they are a shield to protect consumers.

by Kaylee Willis 
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Children with disabilities have specific and unique needs when it comes to their education. Though the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) makes it so that all children with disabilities have access to a free appropriate public education designed to meet their unique needs, there are still many families that struggle to get the services the act entitles them to. The act makes appropriate evaluations, individualized educational plans (IEP), least restrictive environments, and parental participation the right of each special needs child. However, school boards often try to spend as little as possible on providing for children with disabilities, so parents must rely on the legal system to make sure schools provides for their children's needs.  

Since lawyers are prohibitively expensive, making it difficult for qualified professionals to participate in the process leaves families with no affordable options for legal guidance.  In September, the New Jersey Supreme Court Ethics Committee released an opinion that would make it even more difficult for families to get appropriate help from experts concerning their child’s special educational needs. In response, we submitted a comment which resulted in the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law superseding that opinion with one that answered many of our requests.