Should lawyers be able to practice freely outside their home states?
The National Association for the Advancement of Multijurisdiction Practice has been litigating the issue of whether admission on motion privileges should be provided to all attorneys in the United States, the October issue of the ABA Journal reports. Currently, 39 states and the District of Columbia permit lawyers who have not been admitted in the jurisdiction to apply to the state supreme court, board of bar examiners or state bar association to practice there.
The NAAMJP has argued in its litigation that these barriers to admission infringe on First Amendment rights. But “in spite of these and other arguments, there is still a strong belief, reflected in district court rules, that a lawyer should be admitted in the state in which the federal court is located,” law professor Peter A. Joy of Washington University in St. Louis told the ABA Journal.
So this week, we’d like to ask you: Should lawyers be able to practice freely outside their home states? Why or why not—or under what circumstances?
Answer in the comments.
Read the answers to last week’s question: What advice do you have for criminal defendants or civil litigants?
Featured answer:
Posted by SoFlaProbateLawyer: “‘I tripped and fell face first into a pile of cocaine’ is not going to be believed by anyone other than your mother (and maybe not her).”
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