Paralegal’s Email Is Evidence in Lawyer Impersonation Trial

Texan Mauricio Celis is on trial in Corpus Christi this week on 23 counts of falsely holding himself out as a lawyer. He alleges that he is licensed to practice in Mexico and never represented himself as a Texas lawyer.

Three of the counts are based on fax cover sheets, on which the prosecution maintains that Mr. Celis inaccurately identified himself as a licensed lawyer. His defense counsel says the cover sheets were errors resulting from Mr. Celis’ name replacing a lawyer’s name previously listed on the fax sheets, and presented an email from Mr. Celis’ paralegal "which stated it was a mistake that Celis was listed as a licensed attorney in Washington and instructed employees to throw away previous forms and use corrected ones."

For more information about this interesting case involving the alleged unauthorized practice of law, The Caller-Times’ daily coverage of this trial is excellent.

See The Caller-Times.

(As an aside, all of your business E-mail correspondence should be carefully proofread and sent with the authorization and knowledge of your supervising attorney -- you never know when it might end up being a key trial exhibit.)