From Upsolve, Inc. v. James, decided Friday by Judge Lewis Kaplan (S.D.N.Y.) (for the earlier decision reaching the opposite result, see this post):
The nonprofit Upsolve, Inc., wishes to train non-lawyers like the Rev. John Udo-Okon to provide free legal advice to consumers facing debt-collection lawsuits. But that conduct would violate New York's prohibition on the practice of law by anyone other than a licensed attorney. The question in this case is whether Upsolve and the Rev. Udo-Okon have a First Amendment right to engage in their proposed course of conduct notwithstanding the state's licensing law. For the reasons that follow, they do not….
In earlier proceedings, Judge Paul A. Crotty granted plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. In finding that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their free-speech claim, Judge Crotty held that the UPL Rules were a content-based regulation of speech that likely could not survive strict scrutiny….
In September 2025, the Second Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction. The court agreed with Judge Crotty that, as applied to "convey[ing] … legal advice to a client," the UPL Rules regulate speech. But it held that the UPL Rules are content neutral and therefore subject to only intermediate scrutiny. The court remanded for reconsideration of plaintiffs' entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief under that lower standard….
