Court Opinion

ID: 9797688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:27:15.887483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:47.492627
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
concurring.
¶ 20 I join the holding that this court has jurisdiction over disbarred lawyers pursuant to the order of disbarment and Rule 31(a)(3), Ariz.R.Sup.Ct. Creasy is a disbarred lawyer. This case, therefore, affords us no opportunity to address the quite separate question of whether this court has jurisdiction over persons who were never lawyers and whose activities are not part of, or ancillary to, Judicial Department institutions within the meaning of Article VI, § 1 of the Arizona Constitution.
¶ 21 This court has regulatory power over lawyers and disbarred lawyers engaged in the practice of law in this state, for activities both within the Judicial Department and outside of it. This court also has the exclusive authority to determine who shall appear in a representative capacity in Judicial Department institutions and activities ancillary to them. This means that we can prohibit non- . lawyers from representing others in Article VT institutions and proceedings conducted pursuant to Article VI authority (e.g., depositions). But what of non-lawyers engaged in the practice of law outside of Judicial Department institutions? I do not join in that part of the majority opinion, ante, at ¶¶ 6 and 7, which contains dicta suggestive of an answer to this troublesome question. The expansive dicta is imprudent because this is not an action against a person who was never a lawyer.
¶ 22 The question of jurisdiction over non-lawyers for activities outside of Article VI institutions or authority is the direct result of the absence of an unauthorized practice of law statute. That absence creates a potential incongruity between the breadth of the definition of the practice of law, on the one hand, and the limited scope of the Judicial Department’s enforcing authority under Article VI of the Constitution, on the other. Because this court does not possess the broader police power of the state (the legislature does), the question of non-lawyers engaged in activities within the definition of the *545practice of law, yet unconnected to Judicial Department institutions, is complex and its answer must await another day. In the meantime, it is enough to say that we have the power to enforce our orders of disbarment.
[[Image here]]
*546[[Image here]]
*547[[Image here]]
*548[[Image here]]
*549[[Image here]]
*550[[Image here]]