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Does Legalzoom Have First Amendment Rights? Some Thoughts About Freedom Of Speech And The Unauthorized Practice Of Law, Catherine J. Lanctot
Does Legalzoom Have First Amendment Rights? Some Thoughts About Freedom Of Speech And The Unauthorized Practice Of Law, Catherine J. Lanctot
Working Paper Series
At a time of economic dislocation in the legal profession, it is likely that bar regulators will turn their attention to pursuing lay entities that appear to be engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. One prominent target of these efforts is LegalZoom, an online document preparer that has come under increasing pressure from the organized bar for its marketing and sale of basic legal documents. As regulatory pressure against LegalZoom and similar companies continues to mount, it is worth considering whether there may be unanticipated consequences from pursuing these unauthorized practice claims. In several well-known instances, lay people have …
The Individual Mandate, Sovereignty, And The Ends Of Good Government: A Reply To Professor Randy Barnett, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
The Individual Mandate, Sovereignty, And The Ends Of Good Government: A Reply To Professor Randy Barnett, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
Randy Barnett has recently argued that the individual mandate is unconstitutional because it is an improper regulation under the Necessary and Proper Clause (in conjunction with the Commerce Clause) because it improperly "commandeers" the people and thereby violates their sovereignty. In this paper, I counter that the argument from sovereignty is unavailing because it is, among other defects, hopelessly ambiguous. The variety of historically attested meanings of "sovereignty" renders the concept useless for purposes of answering questions of comparative authority, including the authority of the Congress to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance from a private market. There is no …