Pennsylvania woman posed as lawyer for decade

Impossible, you might say, that a person without a sheepskin from some legal diploma mill might be able to perform the duties of an attorney. That's the outrageous aspect of this story from Fox News. The lady was perfectly capable, or at least as capable as anyone else, of doing estate planning that's restricted to members of the bar, that membership being determined by the bar itself. It's a guild system rooted in medieval European society that has nothing to do with an ability to navigate the maze that is the always-growing legal structure. The point is that she wasn't "posing" as a lawyer, she was "being" a lawyer, doing lawyer work, probably in an effective manner. Requiring a license to practice law isn't any different than requiring one to perform manicures, cut hair or work on an air conditioner. It's an interference in the freedom of contract.