Responsive Law Files Brief In S. Carolina Case Supporting NAACP Right to Provide Eviction Advice

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.

​Our brief comes on the heels of a similar brief we filed in Upsolve v. James, where New York's UPL laws were held by a federal court to be a violation of a nonprofit's right to provide information about how to fill out a state-provided form in debt-collection proceedings. (That decision is being appealed to the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals.) The South Carolina case, NAACP v. Wilson is being heard by a federal district court  in South Carolina.

Many thanks to Greg Beck for writing our brief and to Don Brown for serving as our local counsel. You can read our brief here.