R.G.S., Application of

• Decision Date: 01 September 1988
• Docket Number: No. 2,2
• Citation: 541 A.2d 977,312 Md. 626
• Parties: In the Matter of the Application of R.G.S. for Admission to the Bar of Maryland. Misc.,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 626

312 Md. 626

541 A.2d 977

In the Matter of the Application of R.G.S. for Admission to the Bar of Maryland.

Misc. No. 2, Sept. Term, 1988.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 6, 1988.

Submitted before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, ADKINS and BLACKWELL, JJ.

ADKINS, Judge.

As a general rule, a person may not practice law in Maryland until he or she has been admitted to the Bar of this State. Md.Code (1987 Repl. Vol.) Art. 10, § 1. And as a general rule, admission to the Bar of this State is achieved either through successful passage of the regular bar examination (Art. 10, § 3, and Rule 7, Rules Governing Admission to the Bar [hereinafter Bar Admission Rules], or pursuant to Bar Admission Rule 14 (hereinafter Rule 14). See also Art. 10, § 7(a). This case concerns Rule 14. The rule permits admission in Maryland upon successful completion of an abbreviated examination if the applicant, among other things, has been admitted, by examination, to the "Bar of another State, District or Territory of the United States" (Rule 14 a, m), and if he or she "for at least five of the seven years immediately preceding the filing of his [or her] petition [for admission in Maryland] ... has been regularly engaged in any of the following activities: as a practitioner of law; as a full-time teacher of law at a law school approved by the American Bar Association; or as a judge of a court of record." Rule 14 a (iii).

R.G.S. (the applicant) applied for admission under Rule 14. The State Board of Law Examiners recommended that he not be admitted. The matter is before us on the applicant's exceptions to the board's report. Rule 14 h.

There is no dispute about the applicant's legal career. In 1955, following graduation from the University of North Carolina School of Law, he was admitted to the North Carolina Bar by examination. For the next five years, he was assistant director of the Institute of Government and assistant professor of public law and government at the University of North Carolina. For the four years after that, he was an assistant professor at the University of Georgia School of Law. From 1964 to 1969 he was in private practice in North Carolina. In the latter year he came to Maryland as a full-time professor of law at a law school in Baltimore, and he served in that capacity (with significant legal "extracurricular" activities) until June of 1983. In that month he became a part-time adjunct law professor at the law school and also "of counsel" on a full-time basis to an Annapolis law firm. Those arrangements apparently still continue; in any event, they were operative on 22 December 1986, when the applicant filed his application for admission under Rule 14. This summary biography, augmented by material in the board's files, thoroughly justifies the board's conclusion that "[s]ince [1955, the applicant] has devoted his professional life to the law."

What, then, is the problem? Rule 14 a (iii) and (iv) require five years of prescribed activity "within seven years immediately prior to the filing of ... [an applicant's] petition." If one of those activities is teaching law, it must be full-time. Rule 14 a (iii). The seven-year period carries us back to December 1979. From that month until June 1983, the applicant was teaching law full-time--a period of approximately three and a half years. But at the end of that period, his teaching became part-time and thus no longer creditable for Rule 14 purposes. The remainder of the essential five years would have to be based on the theory that the applicant's work at the Annapolis law firm, from June 1983 onwards, amounted to being "regularly engaged ... as a practitioner of the law."

The Board of Law Examiners thought that if "Rule 14 provided for admission by acclamation, clearly ... [the applicant] would have been admitted forthwith." Nevertheless, it concluded that his law firm work was not the practice of law for Rule 14 purposes. And it further concluded that if what he had done was in fact the practice of law, then it was unauthorized practice, and for that reason could not "be recognized by the Board for purposes of Rule 14." We shall consider these positions of the board in order.

I. Practice of Law

A requirement of practice of law for some specified period of time is common in rules dealing with bar admission without full examination. See Annotation, "Validity, Construction, and Effect of Reciprocity Provisions for Admission to Bar of Attorney Admitted to Practice in Another Jurisdiction," 14 A.L.R.4th 7, 13 (1982). Our earlier cases suggest that a reason for the practice requirement was to put the applicant to the test of the reputation he or she would acquire through the practice of law in a single jurisdiction. In re Lohmeyer, 218 Md. 575, 578, 147 A.2d 703, 705 (1959); Edmonds v. Webb, 182 Md. 60, 63, 32 A.2d 702, 703 (1943). But Rule 14 no longer requires five years of practice in a single jurisdiction or in the state of original admission; that requirement was removed in 1980. 8 Md.Reg. 17 (January 9, 1981).

In any case, the principal policy underlying the rule arises from the notion that "it is not unreasonable to assume that lawyers who have been able to sustain themselves by practicing for a number of years in one or more jurisdictions, whether as general practitioners, specialists, house counsel or government employees, possess ... [the skills tested for on the bar examination] in reasonable degree." Adkins, "What Doth the Board Require of Thee?" 28 Md.L.Rev. 103, 112 (1968) (hereinafter "Bar Admissions"). See also In re Application of Mark W., 303 Md. 1, 8-9, 491 A.2d 576, 579-580 (1985) (quoting out-of-state cases to the same effect). In other words, the "consideration ... should be whether the applicant has sufficient professional experience to give a reasonable assurance of at least that degree of basic legal ability and perceptiveness measurable by a bar examination." "Bar Admissions," supra, 28 Md.L.Rev. at 113. In that situation, a new "full" bar examination is dispensed with.

That policy is easy enough to state; it is not so simple to define what is the practice of law within the context of the policy. Indeed, in Mark W., supra, we eschewed any attempt to define the term:

We and the Board of Law Examiners must draw a line between what is and what is not "the practice of law" so as to qualify under the statute [Art. 10, § 7] and the rule. No broad rule can be laid down, as the cases illustrate. Rather, each application must be judged on its own facts.

303 Md. at 18, 491 A.2d at 585. Rule 14 d likewise propounds no precise definition:

For purposes of this Rule a practitioner of the law is defined as a member of the Bar of another State, District or Territory of the United States including Puerto Rico who throughout the period specified in the petition has regularly engaged in the practice of law within the United States and its territories ... as the principal means of earning his livelihood and whose entire professional experience and responsibilities have been sufficient to satisfy the Board that the petitioner should be admitted under this Rule. The Board may consider, among other things,

(i) the extent of the petitioner's experience in general practice;

(ii) if the petitioner is or has been a specialist, the extent of his experience and reputation for competence in such specialty;

(iii) if the petitioner is or has been an employee of a law firm, government or a corporation or other employer, the nature and extent of his professional duties and responsibilities, as such employee, the extent of his contact with and responsibility to clients or other beneficiaries of his professional skills, the extent of his professional contacts with practicing lawyers and judges and his professional reputation among them and

(iv) any professional articles or treatises of which the petitioner has been the author.

In the case before us, does the applicant's work with the Annapolis law firm qualify as the practice of law because it demonstrates a degree of professional proficiency sufficient to make a full bar examination redundant? We turn to the relevant facts, chiefly as revealed in the transcript of the applicant's hearing before the Board of Law Examiners.

In 1981, when the applicant was still a full-time professor of law, the Annapolis law firm where he now works consulted him about a particular case. Both parties enjoyed the relationship and in 1983, the applicant was "asked ... to join the firm as an employee serving the lawyers of the firm and in a full-time capacity...." As we have seen, the applicant accepted this invitation.

He was listed on the firm's letterhead as "of counsel." ¹ He viewed himself as counsel to the firm. In that concept I am the firm's attorney. I'm not able to do the firm's work outside of the firm. I can't take the firm's business to court, but I'm the firm's attorney in the sense that I counsel the firm on legal matters involving the firm and the firm's clients' business.

More specifically, the applicant said he would

sit with the lead attorney from the firm on the case and we would go through the facts of the case and I would participate in an analysis of the case. I would articulate what I thought were the proper legal approaches to it, what I thought were the most likely potential remedies for whatever the problem happened to be and frequently do a great deal of research to support with authority what I had suggested.

Additionally, the applicant drafted pleadings and supporting memoranda of law and briefs, all under the supervision of licensed Maryland lawyers, who signed the documents. And he supervised the research activities of associates and paralegals in the firm. But he did not directly advise the firm's clients, nor did he appear in court, save on a few occasions, when he was admitted pro hac vice, pursuant to Bar Admission Rule 20, to argue cases in the Court of...