18. Unauthorized Practice
(1952)

The State Committee on Unauthorized Practice of Law has been informed that collection agencies in different parts of this state are preparing, serving and filing summons, notices and complaints, using the names of their attorneys without the assistance or advice of their attorneys as to each particular case.

Section 35 of the Canon of Ethics provides:

"The professional services of a lawyer should not be controlled or exploited by any agency, personal or corporate, which intervenes between client and lawyer. A lawyer's responsibilities and qualifications are individual. He should avoid all relations which direct the performance of his duties by or in the interest of such intermediary. A lawyer's relation to his client should be personal, and the responsibility should be direct to the client."

Section 47 thereof provides:

"No lawyer shall permit his professional services, or his name to be used in aid of, or to make possible, the unauthorized practice of law by any lay agency, personal or corporate."

[See RPC 5.5(b)]