## Facts

- A dispute arose over “South Jersey” residential real-estate closings where buyers and sellers often proceed without attorneys.
- In that practice, real estate brokers commonly guide the transaction using form contracts, coordinate financing, order title work, and manage logistics.
- Title company personnel commonly order and review title searches, address routine title issues, prepare conveyance documents (sometimes through counsel selected by them), and conduct closings.
- The Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law issued Opinion No. 26 concluding that several of these broker/title-company activities constituted unauthorized practice of law when neither party had counsel.
- The Supreme Court stayed the opinion’s effect and reviewed it, remanding for a factual record before a Special Master after extensive hearings.
- The Special Master found no proof of actual consumer damage from the established practice, while recognizing risks and recommending attorney involvement as a matter of prudence.

## Issues

1. Whether brokers and title company personnel who manage key components of residential transactions for unrepresented parties engage in the unauthorized practice of law.
2. If the conduct is the practice of law, whether the public interest requires prohibiting nonlawyers from performing it in residential home-sale transactions.
3. Whether, and under what conditions, buyers and sellers may choose to proceed without counsel while brokers and title companies perform limited transactional functions.

## Decision

- The Court held that many activities in broker- and title company-driven residential closings constitute the practice of law.
- The Court reaffirmed its constitutional authority to define and regulate the practice of law and to control unauthorized practice.
- The Court modified Opinion No. 26, concluding the public interest did not require a categorical prohibition that would effectively eliminate the option to close without attorneys.
- The Court permitted residential buyers and sellers to proceed without counsel if specified conditions and safeguards are met.
- When the conditions are satisfied, participating brokers and title company personnel are not deemed to have engaged in unauthorized practice of law.
- The Court applied the rule statewide, not only to South Jersey.

## Legal Principles

- The state supreme court has plenary authority to define the practice of law and to permit or forbid nonlawyer conduct that would otherwise constitute legal practice.
- Whether nonlawyer activity should be prohibited turns on the public interest, not solely on professional boundary disputes.
- Even where conduct constitutes legal practice, the court may allow limited nonlawyer participation in routine residential transactions if safeguards protect consumers.
- Permitted nonlawyer participation is conditioned on consumer-protection measures, including clear disclosure that nonlawyers are not attorneys, warnings about risks of proceeding without independent counsel, and restrictions against holding out or providing individualized legal advice beyond standardized tasks.
- The authorization is limited to residential home-sale transactions and does not extend to complex or commercial real-estate matters.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that broker and title company conduct in unrepresented residential closings can constitute legal practice, but held that the public interest supports allowing such transactions to proceed without attorneys when disclosures and limits protect consumers; accordingly, it modified the committee opinion and adopted statewide conditions under which nonlawyer participants are not treated as committing unauthorized practice.


In re Opinion No. 26 of the Comm. on the Unauthorized Prac. of L., 139 N.J. 323, 654 A.2d 1344 (N.J. 1995)