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I don't think we have much of a problem with out of state lawyers in my area. We have those sleazy guys that do the national advertising for claims against drug companies and that sort of thing, but if they ever do actually file a case here they're going to associate with a local attorney and be able to take the case pro hac vice, or they'll just send it to a local attorney for a referral fee. Certainly with any type of court cases the judges are not likely to allow out of state lawyers to handle them unless they've gone through the motions for pro hac vice representation which just about always means the out of state counsel will have to associate local counsel. We rarely ever see out of state attorneys in our courts and if we do see them they'll have hired local counsel assist in the case. Lawyers in my state make less on average than lawyers in most every other state so we don't lose a lot of business to lawyers elsewhere who will charge a lot more. What kind of work are out of state attorneys stealing from your area? We may have the same problem I just never really hear anyone complaining about it. What you are more likely to hear people complain about here is the fact that we have reciprocity with so few states which makes it a pain in the butt to get licensed in neighboring states. I can look out my office window across the river and see another state I'm not licensed in because I don't really want to have to pay all that money and study for another bar exam when I probably wouldn’t handle enough cases over there to justify all that.

“What kind of work are out of state attorneys stealing from your area?”

Where it really hurts us is in transactional/real estate/ business. A lot of the significant transactions such as business sales, large real estate transactions, hotel and resort sales, are now done entirely out of state by large law firms in New York, Chicago and L.A. A lot of the deals are even escrowed out of state so the parties and their attorneys can claim they did not have minimum contacts with our state. But they are still drafting legal documents that are subject to our state laws and supposed to be effective here.

I guess I would be less upset if these big shots knew what they were doing. I remember a couple of years ago reviewing a purchase and sale agreement for a hotel sale here and it had page after page of boilerplate about the golf course. Only problem is the hotel is in the middle of a city and has no golf course. The document was obviously simply cut and pasted from some resort transaction, probably in Arizona (which you could guess from other clues). But some 3rd or 4th year associate in Chicago was probably billing $400 an hour (or more) to prepare that document.

What kind of work are out of state attorneys stealing from your area?

It's more of an issue with transactional work. I practice commercial real estate law out of DC, but I do deals all over the country (and the world). I'm only admitted in two states plus DC, but I don't violate any ethical rules or laws by working on a transaction in one of the 48 other states where I am not barred.