There is more clarity in the document preparation area. Accounting firms, for example, are prohibited from drafting articles of incorporation or wills and trusts for their clients. However, it is not UPL to sell or distribute an unexecuted sample form or document, as long as the nonlawyer does not assist the member of the public in completing the document. Specimen forms for leases, wills, deeds and other legal instruments are readily available in bookstores and on the Internet and the sale of such documents to the public cannot be enjoined by UPL enforcement. While nonlawyer accountants may be called upon by their clients to provide specimen language for legal instruments, they customarily turn over such work to a client's legal counsel for review.
Many federal agencies permit nonlawyers to represent parties before that particular agency.
The Supreme Court of Virginia's UPL rules expressly defer to such agencies. Nonlawyers may provide advice or services under circumstances that require the use of legal knowledge or skill in the application of any law, federal, state or local, or administrative regulation or ruling, provided the rules of such agency permit the activity and the nonlawyer is acting within the scope of his or her practice authorized by such agency. Indeed, a state bar cannot restrict or interfere with practice rights conferred under federal law. Thus, attorneys who work for CPA firms assert that they do not practice law, but rather practice tax. The practice of tax, they argue, is distinct from the practice of law because the federal government has mandated that capable and qualified non-lawyers be permitted to represent taxpayers, both before the IRS and the Tax Court.