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competing products that are offered without them.  Just as

automobile consumers are entitled to decide whether, for

example, four-wheel drive is of sufficient benefit to justi-

fy the higher price, so are consumers of legal services

entitled to decide whether the bar's system of attorney

discipline is sufficiently important to cause them to choose

attorneys who are governed by a code of professional ethics

over other practitioners who are not.  The attorney disci-

pline system should be put to the test of the market, not

used as an excuse to subvert it.

UPL prohibitions are also defended on the ground that

they help to guard against the waste of scarce judicial

resources.  Most courts have crowded dockets and a long

backlog of cases.  To allow untrained advocates into court

proceedings would, it is argued, consume excessive amounts

of court time and further delay justice.

No doubt, allowing lay representatives in court may

sometimes be inefficient.  Many of them, at least initially,

would struggle with procedure and take up more time than

would an experienced trial attorney.  The same, however, is

true of attorneys who seldom if ever participate in trials.

It is the lack of courtroom experience rather than the ab-

sence of a license to practice law that might cause delays.

Lay advocates who intended to represent clients in

court would have just as strong an incentive to master

procedure as do lawyers who handle litigation.  And allowing

lay advocates to represent their clients in court would

reduce the number of cases in which individuals represent

themselves.  That would substitute a trained advocate for an

untrained one, thereby reducing the court time devoted to

helping a litigant avoid legal pitfalls.

Furthermore, concern about judicial resources provides

no justification whatever for outlawing unauthorized prac-

tice in the great majority of instances that involve no

court appearance.  If the waste of court time is thought to

be a serious problem, the solution is to follow the practice

of the Patent Office, which allows anyone to practice before

it who can pass its proficiency test.  That is a far less

restrictive way to maintain professionalism than are blanket

UPL prohibitions.

Policy Recommendation: Repeal UPL Prohibitions

UPL prohibitions, as we have seen, are neither neces-

sary nor sufficient for the protection of consumers of legal