Summary of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Amendments to Student Practice Rule XX
Analysis
Summary of the Louisiana Supreme Courts Amendments to Student Practice Rule XX
The Supreme Court has amended Rule XX twice since originally restricting law student practice on July 18, 1998. The final version of the rule, adopted March 22, 1999, which has been in effect since April 15, 1999, contains the following provisions:
- Section 4:
Clinics staff and students may not represent clients whose annual income exceeds 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, even if the potential clients have no other means to secure counsel. Thus, a family of four must disclose its income and earn no more than $33,400 a year if it is to qualify for representation by the clinic.
Section 5:Section 5 requires that any “indigent community organization” seeking representation by the clinic must “certify in writing to the inability to pay for legal services.” This certification is “subject to inspection by the Supreme Court of Louisiana.”
Clinic staff and students may not represent such organizations unless “51% of the organizations members are eligible for legal assistance” under the guidelines adopted in section 4 of Rule XX.
In addition to the previous requirements, the organization must provide financial information “which shows that the organization lacks, and has no practical means of obtaining, funds to retain private counsel.”
Section 10:
No student practitioner may represent an individual or organization “if any clinical program supervising lawyer, staffperson, or student practitioner” initiated “in-person contact, or contact by mail, telephone or other communications medium, with [the] indigent person or indigent community organization for the purpose of representing the contacted person or organization.”
Section 11:
The Rule provides that students “must obtain additional authority” to appear before courts and agencies of the federal government and other states. The Rule also states that it does not provide authority for student practitioners to appear “in a representative capacity” before state or federal legislatures.
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