Case Title: Akron Bar Assn. v. Miller

Citation: 1997-Ohio-364

Docket Number: 19971023

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1997-10-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
AKRON BAR ASSOCIATION v. MILLER ET AL. 
[Cite as Akron Bar Assn. v. Miller (1997), 80 Ohio St.3d 6.] 
Attorneys at law — Individual and corporations not authorized to practice law in 
Ohio who give legal advice and counsel in marketing living trusts are 
engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. 
(No. 97-1023 — Submitted July 7, 1997 — Decided October 8, 1997.) 
ON FINAL REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on the Unauthorized Practice of 
Law of the Supreme Court, No. UPL 95-3. 
 
On October 6, 1995, relator, Akron Bar Association, filed a complaint 
charging that respondents, David M. Miller and National Health & Life 
Associates, Inc. (“NHLA”), both of Akron, and Living Trusts America (“LTA”) of 
California, were engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.  Miller and NHLA 
answered, admitting that Miller was not licensed to practice law and denying that 
either Miller or NHLA was engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.  Jack L. 
Pefley, doing business as LTA, answered, stating that LTA was a California 
company, had no connections with Miller or NHLA, and was not engaged in the 
unauthorized practice of law.  Pefley claimed that Miller was an independent 
contractor. 
 
Based on evidence at a September 13, 1996 hearing, the Board of 
Commissioners on the Unauthorized Practice of Law of the Supreme Court 
(“board”) found that in February 1991, LTA, through NHLA, recruited Miller as 
an LTA agent in Ohio.  Miller then signed a “Marketing Agency Agreement” with 
LTA.  LTA trained Miller to market living trusts by following a scripted sales 
presentation to living trust prospects, obtaining information from them, 
transmitting that information to LTA, and overseeing the execution of documents 
prepared by LTA.  Miller was not an attorney, and although he “went through” 
 
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with his clients the information provided by LTA, some of which concerned 
probate avoidance, he personally did not understand what “avoiding probate” 
meant.  Other parts of the “script” defined a living trust, described the tax effects 
of joint tenancy, and discussed the merits of guardianship. 
 
In May 1991, Miller made such a presentation to Esther J. Merkh, a 
seventy-eight-year-old woman, who had been a client of his for a year, advising 
her that he was an agent of LTA.  Miller filled in the forms provided by LTA with 
information he received from Merkh.  The forms to be completed required a 
designation of whether assets were “Probate or Non-Probate,” and whether they 
were owned separately, jointly, or as community property.  Merkh, relying on 
Miller for advice and the preparation of the final documents, then gave Miller a 
check payable to LTA for $695.  Miller forwarded the completed forms and check 
to NHLA, which transmitted them to LTA in California.  Miller, NHLA, and LTA 
each received a share of the $695. 
 
LTA prepared a pour-over will, a living trust, and a durable power of 
attorney for Merkh and forwarded them to Miller.  The documents contained 
several inaccuracies:  e.g., they were to be effective May 15, 1991, but were not 
executed until August 27, 1991.  Also, the durable power of attorney had no 
provision for witnesses but contained the language “release and quitclaim to all 
my estate.”  Miller, who did not believe that it was his duty to see that the 
documents were correct, presented the documents to Merkh in August 1991, 
explained their legal effect, took Merkh to the bank, and received a check for an 
additional $150. 
 
Miller claimed that he was only gathering information for LTA, and not 
giving Merkh advice or creating documents in the trust package.  Yet, the board 
found that in the process of completing the forms used to prepare the LTA 
 
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documents, Miller gave Merkh legal advice and counsel because he aided Merkh 
in designating probate and non-probate assets, selecting a form of trust, 
designating various beneficiaries, and determining tax treatment.  The board 
further found that LTA exercised control over Miller by means of the documents 
whose execution he was to oversee and the script he was to follow. 
 
The board concluded that the actions of Miller, NHLA, and LTA constituted 
the unauthorized practice of law. 
__________________ 
 
Frank E. Steel, for relator. 
 
Mary L. Cibella, for respondents David M. Miller and National Health & 
Life Associates, Inc. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  In Land Title Abstract & Trust Co. v. Dworken (1934), 129 
Ohio St. 23, 28, 1 O.O. 313, 315, 193 N.E. 650, 652, we held that the practice of 
law “‘includes legal advice and counsel, and the preparation of legal instruments 
and contracts by which legal rights are secured * * *.’”  In Green v. Huntington 
Natl. Bank (1965), 4 Ohio St.2d 78, 33 O.O.2d 442, 212 N.E.2d 585, we held that 
a bank’s providing of “specific legal information in relation to the specific facts of 
a particular person’s estate” constituted the practice of law and should be enjoined. 
 
In this case, Miller, on behalf of himself and NHLA, and following a script 
prepared by LTA, provided both counsel and document preparation.  Miller 
informed Merkh about the advantages of a living trust and aided her in completing 
the forms that provided information to LTA for the preparation of a living trust 
and related documents. 
 
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The sales-presentation script used by Miller consisted of a series of 
questions and answers designed to elicit positive responses from the client, 
resulting in agreement to a living trust.  The script describes probate in negative 
terms, reviews the legal and tax effects of joint tenancy, and describes the living 
trust device in very positive terms.  The script concludes with a series of questions 
to which the salesperson is directed to “get an agreement.”  At the conclusion of 
these questions, the salesperson is to quote a $14,000 cost of probate for a 
hypothetical $300,000 estate, and then, without reference to the client’s specific 
assets, ask the client whether she wants her estate to pay $14,000 in probate costs.  
The sales agent is then directed to ask with respect to such cost, “Is that why your 
family sacrificed and did without?  ans.  Of course not.  I can see why you want a 
Living Trust.”  The script then comments, “[A]t this point, the sale has been 
made,” and directs the salesperson to proceed to the worksheet. 
 
Completion of the worksheet form requires more than information 
gathering.  It requires advice and counsel.  For example, the third column on page 
one of the “Estate Planning Worksheet” requires that either the client or the 
salesperson determine which of the client’s assets — cash on hand, real property, 
stocks and bonds, insurance, mutual funds, retirement benefits, etc. — are to be 
“Probate or Non-Probate.”  Pages two and three of the worksheet provide a menu 
of trust vehicles and wills for the client’s selection, each with a short, bulleted 
description of its particular advantages.  Page six of the worksheet requires the 
entry of information for a pour-over will.  A three-line, twenty-two-word 
description of a pour-over will appears on page three of the worksheet. 
 
In view of the decisions which had to be made to complete the forms, 
decisions which involved a consideration of legal concepts, it is disingenuous for 
Miller to claim that he was not giving advice and counsel and to imply that, based 
 
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upon Miller’s short sales pitch, Merkh was sophisticated enough to be aware of 
her own estate-planning requirements.  Miller was more than a servant doing 
Merkh’s bidding.  
 
Moreover, Miller is mistaken when he claims that because LTA produced 
the documents he was not engaged in the practice of law.  Miller  and NHLA were 
agents of LTA.  And because of their arrangements, he, as a salesperson, NHLA, 
his employer, and LTA worked in concert to produce the legal documents.  
 
Miller is not insulated from the unauthorized practice of law by the self-
serving “Consumer Information and Disclosure” at the end of the worksheet 
signed by Merkh. That disclosure read in part, “No legal counsel, legal advice, or 
tax advice has been offered by the agent of Living Trusts America or Living 
Trusts America.”  Merkh may not have understood she was receiving legal advice, 
and Miller did not know that he was giving legal advice. 
 
We are also concerned because an individual who believed she was 
receiving counseling was receiving instead a “sales pitch.”  Miller’s concern was 
to sell a product, an LTA living trust. LTA’s concern was the marketing of 
documents creating living trusts, almost solely on the basis that such trusts 
avoided the costs of probate.  Yet these costs were quoted at a figure totally 
unrelated to Merkh’s circumstances.  No one was concerned about objectively 
advising Merkh. 
 
Unlike a salesperson, the good lawyer’s counsel is not directed to the sale of 
a product but to the best interests of the client.  A lawyer’s counseling is more than 
informing “his client about the legal consequences of pursuing a particular 
objective that the client has already identified and chosen. * * * [R]esponsibilities 
to a client go beyond the preliminary clarification of his goals and include helping 
him to make a deliberately wise choice among them.”  Kronman, The Lost Lawyer 
 
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(1993) 128-129.  As alternatively stated, “the lawyer’s job is not merely to supply 
whatever means are needed to achieve the client’s goals but also to deliberate with 
the client and on his behalf about these goals.”  Id. at 132.  Importantly, the 
personal desires of the lawyer must be subordinated to those of the client.  That is 
why our Code of Professional Responsibility has Ethical Considerations that state 
that legal advice is improper if motivated by a desire to obtain personal benefit. 
 
We adopt the findings and conclusions of the board that Miller, NHLA, and 
LTA all were engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.  They are each hereby 
enjoined from any further activity involving the counseling of persons with respect 
to their legal rights and the preparation of legal instruments and documents to 
secure the legal rights of any person. 
 
All costs and expenses of this action are taxed jointly and severally to 
respondents Miller, NHLA, and LTA. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.