The County and Village maintain that this legal disability renders the trustees' notice of appeal ineffective to initiate a valid appeal. We agree and, therefore, dismiss the appeal. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that nonlawyers such as officers, directors, and shareholders may not represent corporations in Wisconsin courts. See Jadair, Inc. v. United States Fire Ins. Jadair applies a universal principle, which we conclude applies to trustees who seek to speak for another's interests in court.
Trustees stand in a role similar to officers, directors, and shareholders of corporations.
They are nonlawyers attempting to represent the legal interests of someone else-the legal interests of their trust and the trust beneficiaries. As the Jadair court recognized, nonlawyers who attempt to speak for the legal interests of others are engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. By analogy to Jadair , we hold that trustees may appear in Wisconsin courts without licensed legal counsel only to represent their own legal interests in their individual capacities, not to represent the legal interests of their trusts or trust beneficiaries in their representative, fiduciary capacities as trustees. We note that other jurisdictions have reached the same conclusion and require licensed legal counsel to represent the legal interests of trustees acting in their representative, fiduciary capacities for common law express trusts. Jadair applies the same basic principle at work in these cases.