The students (and perhaps the instructor) may be engaging in or facilitating the unauthorized practice of law, which is a crime in many states. For example:  Maine (http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/4/title4sec807.html); Florida (http://leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0400-0499/0454/Sections/0454.23.htm) and California (http://law.onecle.com/california/business/6126.html).

The criminal law issues are in addition to the risk of civil liability based on negligence and the ethical issues of the attorney/instructor under the Rules of Professional Conduct.
____________________________
J. David Canarie, Jr, Esq.
Instructor, Business Law
Saint Joseph's College of Maine
278 White's Bridge Road
Standish, ME 04084-5263

[log in to unmask]
http://www.sjcme.edu
________________________________________
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of BERGER-WALLISER Gerlinde [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 9:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE : Business Law Classes: A Source of Free Legal Advi ce?

I wonder if this even raises legal problems. I don't know about the U.S., but in some European countries this practice would probably violate the lawyers code of conduct, according to which only practicing lawyers are allowed to give legal advice. Of course there is some "grey" area for this.

Sincères salutations / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüssen

P Avant d'imprimer cet e-mail, pensez à l'environnement.

Gerlinde BERGER-WALLISER

Professeur Associé / Associate Professor
Département Environnement des Affaires / Department of Business Environment
ICN Business School
13 rue Michel Ney
54000 Nancy
France
Tel : +33 3 83 17 37 87
Fax : +33 3 83 17 30 80

www.icn-groupe. <http://www.icn-groupe./> fr <http://www.icn-groupe.fr/>



________________________________

De: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk de la part de Dan Levin
Date: sam. 21/08/2010 15:09
À: [log in to unmask]
Objet : Re: Business Law Classes: A Source of Free Legal Advice?


Advising an entrepreneur that he or she can obtain free legal advice for his or her business by asking a business law professor to have the professor's class provide legal services to the entrepreneur seems like an idea that might work in a very limited context:  Having students work on problems for real people in real organizations is, I think, the idea behind internships and service learning.  But advising every entrepreneur that a business law class can do all of the entrepreneur's legal work for free (or in exchange for pizza or Starbuck's gift cards) sounds to me almost like a Saturday Night Live skit.


Here are some questions I'd like to ask Mr. Michalowicz:


(1) How far does your advice go regarding obtaining professional services for free?  For example:


(a) When you and your family have medical problems, do you typically go to your local medical school and ask the Dean if one of his or her professors of medicine can assign your family's medical problems to his or her class of medical students as a class project, so that you and your family can get free medical advice?


(b) Similarly, If you were planning to have a new house built for yourself and your family, would you go to the local university's architecture school and ask the Dean if one of his architecture professors could assign the designing of your new house to his or her class of architecture students as a class project, so that you and your family can get free architectural services?


(2) How would you feel about your business providing thousands of dollars of goods and/or services to customers for free (or in exchange for some pizza and Starbuck's gift cards)?


(3) Do you see any ethical problem with advising an entire class of business people to try to obtain thousands of dollars of professional services for free (or virtually for free)?


(4) Where did you get the idea that business law professors necessarily assign their class boring textbook hypotheticals, and that business law professors have an enormous amount of time in their courses to help local entrepreneurs with all of their legal problems for free (or virtually for free)?


Dan


Daniel Andrew Henschel Levin, JD, MBA
Associate Professor of Business Law
Minnesota State University, Mankato
College of Business
Mankato, MN 56001
507.389.1827
[log in to unmask]
SSRN Author Number 31379
- - - - - -

        Colleagues: See the attached from today's Wall Street Journal in which the author suggests using b-law students for "free" legal advice. Me thinks this is NOT good advice.


        Regards,
        Rick


        Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:A Route to Free Lega#47F433.doc (WDBN/«IC») (0047F433)



--