Court Opinion

ID: 9639712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:45:47.048536+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.195877
License: Public Domain

HOLSTEIN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority opinion. However, I believe some additional comments are necessary. The record upon which the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission relied was made before a referee of the appeals tribunal. The reason for prohibiting non-lawyers from appearing in legal proceedings as advocates for other persons is to protect the public, including *30corporations and corporate shareholders, from the incompetence of untrained, unlicensed practitioners. The record made before the referee for the appeals tribunal is a stark example of the potential dangers of ignoring the prohibition against non-lawyers practicing law.
No attorney was present for K-Mart at the hearing. K-Mart’s only “representatives” at that hearing were two non-lawyer K-Mart employees, Kathy Meinhardt and Dan Johnson. Under these difficult circumstances, the referee undertook direct examination of Ms. Meinhardt and Mr. Johnson. The referee cross-examined Ms. Reed. Although Ms. Meinhardt apparently had some important exhibits in her possession, she did not bother to offer those into the record as evidence.
From what has been said, it is apparent that had Ms. Meinhardt or Mr. Johnson been left to their own resources, there would have been no record to support the Commission’s determination. The only way the record was created was for the referee to abandon his position of neutrality and become an advocate for K-Mart in that adversarial proceeding.1 Clearly the referee had no duty to assist either party. Had the referee not intervened in K-Mart’s behalf, K-Mart and ultimately its shareholders would have suffered at the hands of its non-attorney representatives. That is precisely what the prohibition against non-lawyer representation in legal proceedings was designed to prevent.

. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to address the extent and circumstances under which a referee may participate in presenting evidence at these hearings without giving the appearance, if not the reality, of bias and prejudice.