Doss & Harper Stone Co. v. Hoover Bros. Farms, Inc.

KENNETH W. SHRUM, Presiding Judge.

The mining lease at issue here was drafted by a person with rock quarry and mining experience but no apparent legal training. The document typifies why the public needs greater protection from the unauthorized practice of law by lay persons, whether by non-lawyer title company employees, on-line non-lawyer purveyors of legal documents, or others (as occurred here).

Soon after the subject lease was signed, one party thereto (the “Quarry”) wanted out.1 Accordingly, it sued “Landowner” claiming, inter alia, that the contract was unenforceable because it violated…