Rhode Island § 11-27-16 - Law Practice

§ 11-27-16. Practices permitted to corporations and associations.

(a) Nothing in §§ 11-27-2 — 11-27-11 or §§ 11-27-16 — 11-27-18 shall be construed to limit or prevent:

(1) Any corporation, or its officers or agents, lawfully engaged in the insuring of titles to real property from conducting its business, and the drawing of deeds, mortgages, and other legal instruments in or in connection with the conduct of the business of the corporation;

(2) Any public utility corporation or insurance company, or its officers or agents, from adjusting claims against the corporation or company or those insured by the company with the restrictions provided in § 11-27-9, or the company, or its officers or agents, from advertising to furnish or from furnishing any attorney at law to represent those insured by the company as provided in its policies;

(3) Any corporation or association, or its officers or agents, from drawing, in the regular course of its business, any note, bill, draft, bill of sale, conditional bill of sale, or any ordinary business agreement to which it is a party;

(4) Any corporate administrator, executor, guardian, trustee, or other fiduciary, or its officers or agents, from preparing and filing inventories and accounts and income, inheritance, and estate tax returns, and from attending to the allowance of uncontested accounts in relation to the fiduciary estates;

(5) Any nonprofit sharing credit corporation or association, or its officers or agents, licensed under former Chapter 1782 of the Public Laws, 1931, from collecting or adjusting, as incidental to its main purposes, contract claims of its own members. However, if the aid of any court is to be invoked on a claim, it shall be turned back to the creditor member for reference to his or her own attorney at law;

(6) Any nonprofit sharing automobile service corporation or association, or its officers or agents, from furnishing the services of an attorney at law, who resides and practices exclusively in another state or country, to its members who reside in this state;

(7) Any person or corporation, or its officers or clerks, whose principal source of income is his or its commissions or profits from his, her, or its selling or leasing real estate, or both, and who regularly maintains an office for that purpose, from drafting deeds, mortgages, leases, and agreements in connection with sales or leases made or negotiated by him, her, or it; provided, that in every such case the drafter shall so endorse his or her full name and business address upon the face of the instrument that the endorsement will be recorded if the instrument is recorded;

(8) Any automobile club or association from paying or agreeing to pay for the services of an attorney to advise and defend its members, providing the attorney is of the member’s own selection and is not subject to the control of the club or association; or

(9) Any nonprofit credit counseling corporation or association, or its officers or agents, from providing financial and budgetary advice and judgment to individuals in connection with:

(i) The creation of a budgetary plan;

(ii) The creation of a plan whereby an individual turns over an agreed amount of his or her income to a nonprofit credit counseling corporation which distributes it to his or her creditors in accordance with a plan which they have approved and which may provide for smaller payments or a longer term than the original contract;

(iii) The providing of educational services relating to the use of credit; or

(iv) Any combination of paragraphs (i) through (iii) of this subdivision.

(b) No corporation established for the purpose of providing credit counseling shall engage in the practice of law, and an individual receiving credit counseling shall, when necessary, be referred to an attorney of his or her own choice, the local bar association referral service, or a local legal aid program, whichever may seem most appropriate.