Plead No More

The Ohio Supreme Court has enjoined further unauthorized law practice by a non-lawyer who signed a pleading on behalf of his girlfriend

VanLandingham has never been admitted to the practice of law in Ohio and is not otherwise authorized to practice law in this state. In his answer to relator’s complaint, VanLandingham admitted that he prepared a motion to set aside a plea agreement and to vacate the guilty plea of his codefendant, Meghan E. Link, but he claimed that he filed it on his own behalf and that because he had forgotten to sign it, he merely attempted to file it. The certified journal report of the case, submitted with relator’s motion for summary judgment, states that the motion was not signed and should not have been docketed.

The court

The unauthorized practice of law is the rendering of legal services for another by any person not admitted or otherwise certified to practice law in Ohio. Gov.Bar R. VII(2)(A). This includes the “preparation of pleadings and other papers incident to actions and special proceedings and the management of such actions and proceedings on behalf of clients before judges and the courts.” Land Title Abstract & Trust Co. v. Dworken, 129 Ohio St. 23, 194 N.E. 650, paragraph one of the syllabus (1934).

The board found that by drafting and filing, or attempting to file, a motion to set aside a plea agreement and to vacate a guilty plea on behalf of Meghan Link in Toledo Municipal Court case No. CRB-12-04420, VanLandingham engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. We agree.

(Mike Frisch)