Jurisdictional Disconnect over Unauthorized Practice of Law

This author practices her right to represent herself in court, which makes fighting Big Money more accessible.

There are allegations that I ran afoul of the laws against the unauthorized practice of law in two states.

In Arkansas, I helped prepare a deed of real estate from an individual to a living trust of which I was trustee, settlor and sole non-contingent beneficiary. Judge Susan Kaye Weaver said that deed is “void ab initio” and took the property rights away from me as trustee and also, because she is the judge and she said so, took away my personal rights as an individual.

Even though my title rep on another transaction said she sees similar deeds relied upon fairly often, I think that technically, someone unauthorized to practice law cannot write a deed. In my case, there are two questions. Can someone unauthorized to practice law fill in the name and property description on a deed written by an attorney? And, is an individual representing someone else, if she is the only person with an active right involved?

I also filed a complaint in Federal District Court for the Southern District of California that was a “derivative” claim for malpractice against some attorneys, Patrick McGarrigle, Ellis Stern and Alan Goldberg, who represented a limited liability company of which I owned 14%, and simultaneously represented the individual interests of my co-owners. Ellis Stern made a written opinion of the value of my shares in the company as $218,000 for the purpose of selling to his clients. One piece of real estate owned by the company sold 18 months later to a third party for $1.4 million for just my share. hmm?

The attorney defendants, the attorney firms representing them and the judge, Janis Sammartino, said nothing about a nonattorney filing a derivative suit. It seems they wanted me to advocate for the company, probably because it would be easy to cheat against me.

I found on my own that the derivative suit is “on behalf of” the company and dismissed the claims against the attorney defendants. I was clear that the dismissal was mandatory, even though it was under the voluntary dismissal statute.

Judge Sammartino ordered me to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the attorney defendants for attorney fees based on the premise that the dismissal meant the attorneys prevailed on an anti-SLAPP suit. (Usually, legal malpractice and conversion suits are not considered SLAPP, Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation.)

I said the complaint was null and void, as it was the unauthorized practice of law. (My error was unwitting, it was corrected immediately upon discovery, and Judge Sammartino had denied me limited scope representation to hire someone specifically to explain a derivative suit to me.) Any outcome of a null and void document is also null and void.

A Democratic poser who recently was appointed to judgeship by Joe Biden, Linda Lopez, affirmed Judge Sammartino’s error upon motion for reconsideration after the case was transferred between judges a few times. I say “Democratic poser” because Judge Linda Lopez treats individuals with disdain and a lack of compassion. As a Libertarian, the qualities I like about Democrats is that they claim to care about the average person more than the people and entities that have the most money.

So, now I am appealing two orders in two different jurisdictions and the jurisdictions handle the outcome of documents prepared on behalf of trusts and LLCs by a nonattorney differently.

I think the people who comprise our judiciary interpret the law in whatever way benefits their attorney friends and makes the courts inaccessible to any but Big Money.