CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Marquette University Law School Marquette Law Review Volume 77 | Issue 2 Article 4 Regulating In-House Counsel: A Catholicon or a Nostrum Daniel A. Vigil Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Law Commons Repository Citation Daniel A. Vigil, Regulating In-House Counsel: A Catholicon or a Nostrum, 77 Marq. L. Rev. 307 (2009). Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol77/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Law Review by an authorized administrator of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. REGULATING IN-HOUSE COUNSEL: A CATHOLICON OR A NOSTRUM? DANIEL A. VIGIL* I. INTRODUCTION What is and what is not the unauthorized practice of law has long been difficult, if not impossible, to define.' Unauthorized practice of law committees and courts have frequently grappled with the issue. Specifi- cally, are corporate in-house counsel participating in the unauthorized practice of law when they are assigned to work in a jurisdiction where they are not licensed? This issue has never been fully resolved. The American Bar Association has sidestepped the issue, although it has had a number of opportunities to address it. The ABA Code of Pro- fessional Responsibility and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Con- duct provide little guidance. They simply state that "[a] lawyer shall not practice law in a jurisdiction where doing so violates the regulation of the legal profession in that juisdiction."2 In the absence of guidance from the ABA, states confronting the question have reached very differ- ent conclusions.