Robert Roth and Greg Ellis persuaded California’s Third District Court of Appeal to rule in favor of their client, who was successfully represented in the trial court by a person not licensed to practice law, despite case law deeming such judgments generally voidable.
In this appeal, CALG’s client was represented in the trial court by her nonlawyer father, who won a civil restraining order for his daughter. The losing defendant appealed on the ground that case law renders any judgment procured by unlicensed counsel voidable. Despite that case law, however, the Court of Appeal affirmed. It held that only the party who is represented by the unlicensed person has standing to seek to void an order due to unlicensed representation — not the adequately represented opposing party. It explained that the rationale for voiding judgments involving nonlawyer counsel is to protect parties from the harm caused by incompetent representation, but that this public policy would not be served by allowing the party who was not represented by the unlicensed person — and whose rights were therefore not affected — to exercise power to void the judgment.
You can read the decision in N.V. v. C. C. by clicking here.