The Unauthorized Practice of law: Do Good Fences Really Make Good Neighbors—or Even Good Sense?1

While the legal profession's efforts to suppress the practice of law by non-lawyers go back to colonial times, the modern unauthorized practice movement began in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Its greatest success, however, took place during the 40 years from 1920 to 1960. Recent years have seen the reversal of some of the prior successes in the field, and current challenges to unauthorized practice restrictions raise serious questions about their present validity. Do the benefits to the public from the enforcement of rules against the unauthorized practice of law justify continuation of the effort?