Pre-Admission Advice To Skincare Salon Draws Sanction

More from the most recent online edition of the California Bar Journal:

[An attorney] was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on one year of probation and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. The order took effect Jan. 29, 2011.

[The attorney] went to a skincare salon and after completing a client profile and consent form, she told the staff that the form did not adequately protect the salon from lawsuits. She later met with the company CEO and offered to improve the legal language of the form in exchange for skin care products and services.

[She] was not licensed at the time, although she was truthful when she told the CEO she had a law degree and had passed the bar exam, but was awaiting a background check. She stipulated that care Salon she held herself out as an attorney when she wasn’t entitled to practice.

[She] did not notify the Committee of Bar Examiners that she acted as an attorney before she was licensed and stipulated that she knowingly failed to disclose a material fact for admission to the bar.

In mitigation, the client was not harmed because the spa did not use [her] suggested language in its form.

Wait until you are sworn in to give legal advice. (Mike Frisch)