Justia Massachusetts Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

PCG Trading filed a complaint for legal malpractice and related claims against Seyfarth Shaw and four individual attorneys associated or formerly associated with the firm. At issue was whether a motion filed by PCG Trading for admission of an attorney pro hac vice was properly denied by a judge in the Superior Court. The court held that the order denying the motion to admit Robert L. Garner pro hac vice was reversed, and the case was remanded to the Superior Court for further proceedings. View "PCG Trading, LLC v. Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, et al." on Justia Law

The Real Estate Bar Association of Massachusettes ("REBA") claimed that certain activities undertaken by the National Real Estate Information Services ("NREIS") constituted an unauthorized practice of law. At issue was whether NREIS's activities, either in whole or in part, based on the record and as described in the parties' filings, constituted the unauthorized practice of law in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 221, section 46 et seq. Also at issue was whether NREIS's activities, in contracting with Massachusetts attorneys to attend real estate closings, violated Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 221, section 46 et seq. The court held that certain of the real estate settlement activities undertaken by NREIS did not constitute the unauthorized practice of law but the court could not determine based on the record whether the other described settlement activities did. The court also held that the closing or settlement of the types of real estate transactions described in the record required not only the presence but the substantive participation of an attorney on behalf of the mortgage lender and that certain services connected with real property conveyances constituted the practice of law.