Your twisting my question.
I will ask directly. Upthread you said that a person could prepare their own deed and not run afoul of laws that require an attorney to prepare a deed.
So, Denise, doing it herself, prepares a marked up deed and then hands it off to Mary's Typing and Transcribing, LLC, to type up the document with Denise's edits following the formatting instructions provided to Mary or her staff by Denise. Mary is doing nothing other than what, say, a temp from a clerical service might do in an attorney's office. The only difference is that Mary is physically doing the typing in her offices instead of going to an attorney's office to do the work.
In your opinion, is Mary illegally practicing law because she ministerially transcribes legal documents and enters other people's edits into those documents.
Steve: In your example, a MARKED up deed, it is a typing service at that point. The document typist can not change ANYTHING on the marked up version. It has to be a word for word version of what was presented. The deed preparation companies I have seen on here, however, DO NOT require you to send them a marked up copy of a deed. You enter information into their website and low and behold a deed has been prepared complete with buyer names, seller names, legal descriptions etc. Since no "Marked" up deed was ever furnished to them, then by your example they prepared it. That is the practice of law.
If anything other than what is typed on the deed, lack of maritial status, lack of notary section, lack of witness lines, incomplete legal description, or the preparer has some knowledge of something wrong, and they "fix" it, then you are not a typing service, your drafting a legal document, and drafting the document is the practice of law.
Also, reviewing for the completeness of the "MARKED" up document, is rendering an opinion that the deed will do what it is supposed to do, and the rendering of an opinion is the practice of law.
Technically, the selection of the type of deed that has to be used is also the practice of law.
In all states, the selection of the type of notorial act, unless the signer of the document tells you which type of notorial act they want is the practice of law.
The problem fast becoming in many states is these typing services ROUTINELY go past typing the form in front of them, many call themselves paralegal services.
Several states have now gone on and defined who can use the terms, paralegal, legal assistant, etc and the ruling has been someone under the direct immediate supervision (ie, on the law firm payroll) of an attorney licensed to practice law.
When I hear of companies that are not licensed to perform escrow, but as one put it they do poor mans escrow, where they hold a check until a deed records, then they send it off to the person that was supposed to get it, that is in itself ESCROW. Again, in their eyes, they are not performing escrow services, but they are by legal definition doing so, and that requires licensing and other factors.
So as you see, it is very easy to cross the line and think nothing if it.
