No, you can't do this legally. The murky depths of the internet, particularly on youtube and other places which give a platform for idiots to spread their disinfo, are full of people giving bad, fake legal information or education with disclaimers that they are doing so "just for entertainment purposes." Some even will add that if you want legal advice consult a lawyer.LightinDarkness wrote: My question for our resident lawyers: can someone do this legally? Although he has a huge disclaimer saying hes not offering legal advice, he is clearly doing so, and for a profit, and hes clearly guiding people in way that will simply get their homes taken/thrown in jail if they listen. I know the guidelines for the practice of law vary by state, so he lives in Arizona. In the pictures of the seminars, it looks like hes getting at least 30 suckers to sign up for this insanity - thats $9k a pop for something that including travel expenses couldn't cost him more than $1k to run.
Persons who didn't go to law school often think that the legal system is slightly more ridiculous than it actually is (probably too much television). One way this manifests itself is that they believe that all the laws can be thrown off by simplying re-labelling one's actions. Shady loan modification scam firms will say they are not doing loan modifications, but rather "contract negotiations." This specific clown thinks that by saying he just giving "Christian counseling" he is somehow immune to any laws relating to practicing without a license. How much do you wanna speculate that he will try to claim the income is tax free? The law doesn't recognize such purely semantic distinctions, which seem to be the underpinnings of a lot of the sovereign legal mythology.
It becomes much more onerous IMHO when they give case-specific advice. I've even had one fruitcake I confronted take it a step further, and say that because he wasn't a lawyer, he wasn't giving "legal advice" per se and alone therefore can't possibly be practicing without a license.
Certainly, anyone who watches a video, or reads a book or article, and acts on that alone, is foolish - and I would say that such don't amount to legal advice unless it is purportedly geared to that person's situation. (In other words, this is not legal advice, either!!! So take that! ) But it sounds like this character was charging a fee to give "Christian counseling" that consists of case-specific legal advice, and that is what it is, not what he calls it.
That being said, I don't know where this case is located. In some states it is a misdemeanor to practice without a license, though for some reason, courts rarely get excited when they are confronted with the mounds of gibberish that obviously comes from untrained and nonlicensed paralegals/mortgage consultants/swamis/gurus/and other assorted poopheads. In some states one may be required to have a law license to practice law, but there may be no statute criminalizing the unlicensed practice.
But aside from that, giving a room full of people who have paid lots of $ a seminar on bad faith legal tactics and fake laws that don't exist (e.g. "strawman" crap) sounds a lot like "fraud" and illegal for that reason.